National Institutes of Health Reform Act of 2006

NATIONAL INSTITUTES OF HEALTH REFORM ACT OF 2006 -- (House of Representatives - September 26, 2006)

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Mr. MARKEY. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman, and I thank her for her excellent work on this legislation. And I thank the Members of the majority for their work on this legislation as well.

But I come to the floor in order to identify the single most glaring deficiency in the legislation. This is a promise of a 5 percent increase in the NIH budget each year. But the reality is that this 5 percent is an imaginary 5 percent because this 5 percent does not account for the reality of health care inflation.

On an average year, health care inflation is 3 to 4 percent. In some years it is 5 to 10 percent, meaning that a 5 percent increase is actually in some years an actual reduction in the amount of money which can be used for health care research.

In fact, what we have seen over the last 3 years is that while the Republicans have flatlined the NIH budget, it has actually lost 11 percent of its purchasing power in new research that targets the diseases which affect American families. Research is medicine's field of dreams from which we harvest the findings that give hope to American families, the clues that can unlock the diseases which they fear will affect their family, and there is no family that doesn't have some disease that they believe runs through their family's history. It could be Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, heart disease, cancer, diabetes, you name it; but it goes right down to some diseases that have very small numbers of Americans that are affected, like cystic fibrosis, which might only have 30,000 Americans.

What happens in a situation like this is because of the huge tax cuts which the Republicans have pushed through Congress year after year, we are incapable here in Congress of then gaining their support in order to increase above inflation by 5 percent the NIH budget.

And so who do we quote on a subject like this? Who do we quote on the subject of inflation and the impact that it has on American families? Who has been the single most articulate American on the subject of inflation in our lifetime? That person is Ronald Reagan. This is what Ronald Reagan said about inflation. He said: ``Inflation is as violent as a mugger, as frightening as an armed robber, and as deadly as a hit man.''

Mr. Speaker, we don't want the NIH research budget to be robbed by inflation. That is what is happening. It has happened since 2003. It is going to continue. Between 12 and 16 million American baby boomers are going to contract Alzheimer's. There is a belief that if we could make a breakthrough in Alzheimer's, we could delay its onset by 7 years, saving at least 50 to $60 billion because they won't need care during those years.

This is without question in my opinion the most important budget that comes through Congress because this is, more than terrorism, the one issue that puts the fear of God in the hearts of every family. It is that one of these diseases will come into one of their family members.

My belief is that there has been a series of choices made in the last 6 years to have these massive tax cuts that makes it impossible for us to give a cost-of-living increase on top of inflation. It is wrong, and I believe that this bill, as good as it is in so many places, is deficient in the one central area which is central.

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