Kalamazoo Gazette - Rep Fred Upton Plans to get 21st Century Cures Bill to President Obama by Year's End

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By Alex Mitchell

After several years of divisive partisan battles over health care, Congressman Fred Upton has just brokered one bipartisan deal and is working on another.

Upton, R-St. Joseph, and Congresswoman Diana DeGette, D-Colorado, were in West Michigan Monday to speak with health care stakeholders and patient advocacy groups about their 21st Century Cures initiative aimed at accelerating the pace at which medical treatments and devices are discovered, developed and delivered to the American public.
By Alex Mitchell

Upton, who also recently helped broker a bipartisan Medicare "doc fix" bill that provided a long-term solution for how doctors are reimbursed by Medicare, said he plans to introduce the 21st Century Cures bill in the next few weeks and have it on President Obama's desk by the end of the year.

"It's like juggling basketballs," Upton said of working on the two health care initiatives at the same time.

DeGette said that while the initiative has already received early bipartisan support, it's also gained "tremendous consensus" from a number of groups, including researchers, students and patient advocacy organizations.

So far, no formal opposition has come out against the initiative, which Upton first announced last year. DeGette said the only people currently against the plan are people who don't support the government conducting biomedical research.

"It's true it's a big idea, but there's tremendous conesus around it from all these diverse groups," DeGette said. "People are going to be really positively impacted by how big it is."

Upton said he plans to have the bill on the House floor by June so the legislation can stay far ahead of the politics surrounding the lead-up to the 2016 presidential election.

"(Presidential politics) does slow down the legislative process, so we want to be ahead of the big slowdown," Upton said.

Upton said the bill will also seek to make research grant from the National Institute of Health more accessible to younger researchers. Currently, the average age of a NIH grant recipient is 42.

"How do you keep people in the pipeline when they can't get research dollars until they're in their 40s?" Upton said.

DeGette said opening up grant opportunities to a wider variety of researchers will also ensure more innovative research is studied since many researchers currently aim for safe projects when applying for the limited funds.

As for the future, DeGette, the current House Democratic Deputy Whip, said she thinks her and Upton's collaboration on 21st Century Cures bodes well for the state of partisan politics.

"If we can actually look at systemic reform in a bill like this, I think it bodes well for the future," DeGette said.

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