Subject: White House AIDS Budget Request Continues to Focus on Research
Date: Published: 12/5/91 (48 lines)
Source:  Wall Street Journal.  Copyright Dow Jones & Co. Inc. 

    White House to Seek
    Funding Increases
    For Women, Children

    WASHINGTON -- The White House is preparing a Health and
 Human Services budget for fiscal 1993 that boosts funding for
 numerous programs serving women and children, while
 continuing to focus on AIDS research rather than treatment
 programs.
    In addition, the administration plans to propose $2.6
 billion in savings for Medicare, including cuts in
 reimbursements to teaching hospitals.  Similar measures were
 proposed and rejected for the current fiscal year.
    The White House budget office plans to seek $2.5 billion
 for Head Start, a popular program for disadvantaged
 pre-schoolers, a 12% increase from the current fiscal year.  A
 program that screens low-income women for breast and cervical
 cancer would grow 40% from the current year to $70 million,
 according to administration budget documents.
    Funding for a program to fight infant mortality would
 nearly double to $124 million.  Increases are also sought for
 several immunization programs, including a 16% boost for a
 Centers for Disease Control vaccination service.
    The White House plans to have National Institutes of
 Health research grants increase 2% faster than the inflation
 rate, and some of that increase is expected to go to acquired
 immune deficiency syndrome.  But it would hold the line on
 funding for several treatment and prevention programs.
 Legislation named after Ryan White, a teenager who died of
 AIDS, that authorizes federal grants to help communities
 provide care and early intervention for AIDS patients would
 have its funding remain at $316 million.
    The budget documents don't specify precisely how much HHS
 would spend on every AIDS-related program and don't provide
 an overall total for departmental spending on AIDS.  
    Overall, the White House is seeking to increase HHS
 spending authority by $50 billion to more than $665 billion
 in fiscal 1993.  The total includes such entitlement programs
 as Medicare, which provides health coverage for the elderly
 and disabled.

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