Between October 1 and 17, the federal government ceased all nonessential operations because of a partisan stalemate over Obamacare. Although it is premature to declare this the greatest example of misgovernance in modern U.S. Congressional history, this impasse ranks highly.
One casualty of the showdown was any consideration of changes to lessen the impact of the across-the-board sequestration cuts that began on March 1. The cuts have caused economic and other distress across the nation, including serious impacts within the health care sector. Nearly eight months into sequestration, we can move beyond predictions and begin to quantify these effects.
Consider the following impacts of sequestration on Federal health agencies and activities:
NATIONAL INSTITUTES OF HEALTH
Cuts to the FY13 budget: $1.71 billion or 5.5%
This includes:
A 5.8% cut to the National Cancer Institute, including 6% to ongoing grants, 6.5% to cancer centers, and 8.5% to existing contracts
A 5.0% cut to National Institute of General Medical Sciences, and a 21.6% drop in new grant awards
Among the effects:
- 703 fewer new and competing research projects
- 1,357 fewer research grants in total
- 750 or 7% fewer patients admitted to NIH Clinical Center
- $3 billion in lost economic activity and 20,500 lost jobs
- Estimated lost medical and scientific funding in California, Massachusetts, and New York alone of $180, $128, and $104 million respectively.
Dr. Randy Schekman, whose first major grant was from the National Institutes of Health in 1978, said winning this year’s Nobel Prize for Medicine made him reflect on how his original proposal might have fared in today’s depressed funding climate. “It would have been much, much more difficult to get support,” he said. Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) noted the irony that because of sequester cuts, NIH funding was reduced for the research that resulted in Yale’s James Rothman sharing in the 2013 Nobel Prize for Medicine.
