{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["http://degette.house.gov/media-center/in-the-news/house-overwhelmingly-approves-sweeping-health-measure", "House Overwhelmingly Approves Sweeping Health Measure", "2016-12-02", "2016", "2016-12", "Democrat", "House", "CO", "Diana DeGette", "D000197", "degette.house.gov", null, null, "legacy", "WASHINGTON \u2014 The House overwhelmingly passed a far-reaching measure on Wednesday to increase funding for research into\u00a0cancer\u00a0and other diseases, address weaknesses in the nation\u2019s\u00a0mental health\u00a0systems and help combat the prescription drug addictions that have bedeviled nearly every state.\nThe bill, known as the 21st Century Cures Act, also makes regulatory changes for drugs and medical devices, which critics argue lower standards to potentially perilous levels.\nPassage of the bill in the Senate next week appears likely, even though Senator Elizabeth Warren, Democrat of Massachusetts, has taken to the floor twice to criticize the bill as a windfall for drug companies, with too few safety provisions. \u201cThe American people are not clamoring for the Cures bill,\u201d Ms. Warren said on Wednesday, calling it the sort of measure that explains \u201cwhy people hate Washington.\u201d\nThe bill, which passed 392 to 26, was the product of three years of work, largely in the House, with former and current officials from the\u00a0Food and Drug Administration\u00a0and\u00a0National Institutes of Health\u00a0\u2014 two of the biggest beneficiaries of new funding in the bill \u2014 as well as scientists, health care advocates and others. It aims to streamline the federal drug regulatory structure to keep up with advances in biotechnology and other forms of medical research.\n\u201cWe have listened to every group out there,\u201d said Representative Fred Upton, Republican of Michigan and the chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which shepherded the bill. \u201cI think we have a pretty good bipartisan bill that\u2019s going to meet everyone\u2019s test of how legislation should be done.\u201d\nThe bill authorizes billions of dollars in new funding for N.I.H. research, much of it directed for Alzheimer\u2019s disease and cancer, including money for the\u00a0cancer\u00a0\u201cmoonshot\u201d\u00a0sought by Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., whose\u00a0son died\u00a0from complications of a brain tumor last year. The F.D.A. is expected to receive a half-billion dollars, in part to help expand its staff to speed up processes at that agency. States could tap into roughly $1 billion over two years to fight the opioid epidemic.\nIt also folds in another large piece of legislation designed to improve the nation\u2019s mental health services.\nLanguage that would have exempted\u00a0some speaker fees\u00a0from a requirement compelling doctors to report payments received from the pharmaceutical industry was excised at the last minute.\nDemocrats are unhappy with the way the bill is funded. It authorizes $6.3 billion in money taken from a preventive health care fund and other sources, but funding must be appropriated annually. Democrats wanted the funding to be automatic each year.\n\u201cWe have assurances from Republicans that they want to spend this money,\u201d said Representative Diana DeGette, Democrat of Colorado, who traveled around the country with Mr. Upton to build support for the bill. \u201cI actually feel confident that the money will be spent on that because this is a goal that is shared by both parties.\u201d\nCritics of the bill say it lowers standards for drug and device approvals at the Food and Drug Administration, in exchange for a badly needed funding increase for the National Institutes of Health.\n\u201cI think this takes us backward,\u201d said Susan Wood, an associate professor of health policy at George Washington University and a former assistant commissioner for women\u2019s health at the F.D.A. \u201cIt was a trade-off that was never worth doing.\u201d\nOthers argue that the bill falls short because it elevates measures of a drug\u2019s success called surrogate end points that can be misleading \u2014 for example, if a drug shrinks a tumor but does not ultimately prolong life. \u201cThis legislation pressures the F.D.A. to rely more on surrogate end points instead of results that matter to patients, living longer or feeling better,\u201d said Diana Zuckerman, president of the National Center for Health Research in Washington.\nMs. DeGette said that although the bill contained provisions she did not like, \u201cthere is nothing in this bill that the F.D.A. says would undermine safety or efficacy of drugs.\u201d She and other Democrats said they would get no better a deal next year under President Donald J. Trump and a Republican-controlled Congress.\nIn talks among House Republicans, Mr. Upton said, \u201csomeone said, \u2018Why don\u2019t we let Trump have this victory?\u2019\n\u201cBut we can\u2019t delay it for political reasons,\u201d he continued. \u201cWho knows what would have happened if we had to start from scratch next year?\u201d", 1, "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z", "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["http://degette.house.gov/media-center/in-the-news/house-overwhelmingly-approves-sweeping-health-measure"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 0.7012279238551855, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}