May 17, 2022
Every March, the US House of Representatives begins its annual budget and appropriations process. There are forms and meetings and sign-on letters circulating, as well as many groups doing Hill Days or Fly-Ins, much like our annual Kidney Patient Summit.
If you participated in this year’s KPS, you know that one of our asks was for increased funding to both the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the National Institutes of Health and programs that promote kidney disease research, awareness, and early detection. As a part of that ask, we also circulated a letter to Members of Congress, led by Representatives Bobby Rush (D-IL), Bill Posey (R-FL), and Marilyn Strickland (D-WA).
Thanks to the advocacy of our Voices for Kidney Health community as well as our KPS participants, we were thrilled to have 82 Members of Congress sign that letter, a record number! You can read the final letter here, and if your representative signed it, please ping them with a quick thank you!
The FY23 appropriations process continues with annual budget hearings with Secretary of Health and Human Services Xavier Becerra appearing before the House and Senate Appropriations Committees, and NKF will be submitting not only testimony on behalf of our CDC and NIH requests but also questions for the record to get more detailed information on how kidney disease priorities are being actualized within these agencies.
As you may remember, the FY22 appropriations process was complicated and did not resolve itself until March of this year, but we will keep our fingers crossed for an easier process this time, and of course keep you all posted with any opportunities for advocacy on these priorities.
