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Blunt Touts Missouri Priorities in Government Funding Bill

Source: United States Senator for Missouri Roy Blunt

WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Roy Blunt (Mo.), the top Republican on the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies (Labor/HHS) and a member of the Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense, announced that the FY2022 government funding bill, which is on its way to the president’s desk, includes key investments that will benefit Missouri.

“Missouri is on the cutting edge in areas like health research and precision medicine, ag and food innovation, advanced manufacturing, technology, defense aviation, and geospatial intelligence,” said Blunt. “Smart, targeted federal investments will allow our state to continue growing our footprint in these areas that are critically important in the 21st Century economy. It’s an exciting time and I’ve been proud to advocate for Missouri-focused federal investments that will allow our state to leverage our central location, our top research institutions, and our public-private partnerships to create new opportunities for people to raise families and build their careers where we live.

“While I am pleased that this funding package reflects Missouri’s priorities, I am disappointed we were not able to pass the bill through the regular appropriations process. Every member should have the opportunity to debate funding legislation and ensure that we are spending taxpayer dollars on programs that will have the most benefit for the most people.”

Blunt previously highlighted investments to strengthen Missouri ag and infrastructure, protect communities, and support military installations:

• Blunt Highlights Missouri Ag, Infrastructure Priorities Included in FY22 Legislative Package

• Blunt Highlights Missouri Law Enforcement, First Responder Priorities in Government Funding Bill

• Blunt Announces Key Missouri and National Defense Priorities in Defense, Military Construction & VA Funding Bills

As the top Republican on the Labor/HHS subcommittee, Blunt also previously announced key health, education, and workforce preparedness investments included in the Labor/HHS bill:

• Blunt Secures 7th Consecutive Increase for Life-Saving, Cost-Saving NIH Research

• Blunt Announces Key Investments in Workforce Development, Job Training Programs Included in FY22 Labor/HHS Bill

• Blunt-Led Bill Targets Funding for Education Programs that Support Students at Every Stage

In addition to these investments, the Labor/HHS bill includes:

  • Ending the HIV Epidemic: $513.25 million, an increase of $70 million, to support the initiative started by the Trump administration in FY2020 to reduce the number of new HIV infections by 90% in10 years. The majority of these resources are targeted to 48 counties and seven states, including Missouri, for prevention, diagnoses, research, and response activities. Missouri has received$11.7 million in the first two years of the program for these efforts.
  • Opioid Epidemic: $4.28 billion, an increase of $299 million, to combat the opioid epidemic. Funds are targeted toward improving treatment and prevention efforts; finding alternative pain medications; workforce needs, especially in our rural communities; and treating behavioral health. Importantly, the bill gives states flexibility to use opioid response funds on stimulants across multiple government programs. In the last year, the number of drug overdose deaths exceeded 100,000 lives, emphasizing the need to continue these critical investments. Under Blunt’s leadership, funding for health-related opioid programs has increased by $4 billion.
  • Mental Health: As a critical part of both combating opioid abuse and ensuring safety in our schools and communities, the bill provides $4.47 billion, a $394.3 million increase, for mental health research, treatment, and prevention, including:
    • Certified Community Behavioral Health Clinics: $315 million, an increase of $65 million, for Certified Community Behavioral Health Clinics. In 2018, Blunt targeted funding to community clinics that provide a comprehensive approach to mental health care treatment. Missouri clinics served roughly 150,000 patients in 2021, and have received more than $40 million in funds from this program to date. Blunt has led efforts to expand access to mental health care, including through his Excellence In Mental Health Act, which created a pilot program in Missouri and seven other states to advance progress toward treating mental health like all other health. The program was extended and expanded to two additional states in the Blunt-backed CARES Act;
    • Mental Health Crisis Response: The bill continues the mental health block grant set-aside started in FY2021, at 5%, to support state efforts to build crisis systems to address the needs of individuals in mental health crises. The development of these services will promote 24/7 access for individuals in acute mental health crisis to well-trained mental health professionals. The bill also includes $5 million for NEW crisis response partnership pilot grants;
    • Project AWARE: $120 million, a $13 million increase, for the Project AWARE program that supports coordination between schools and state mental health agencies to increase awareness of mental health among school-aged kids, train school personnel on detecting and responding to mental health issues, and connect school-aged kids and their families with needed services. Within this funding, the bill provides $12.5 million to address areas that have experienced civil unrest;
    • Mental Health Awareness Training: $25 million, an increase of $1 million, for Mental Health Awareness Training in which Missouri was one of the first adopters;
    • Suicide Programs: $175 million, an increase of $85 million. This increase provides support to the suicide lifeline, which is transitioning to a 3-digit number (9-8-8) in July 2022, and for grants to help identify and help those at risk of suicide;
    • Behavioral Health Workforce: $162.1 million, an increase of $12.1 million, to support Behavioral Health Education and Workforce Training programs and Mental and Behavioral Health programs. Funding includes $31.7 million for the Mental and Substance Use Disorder (SUD) Workforce Training Demonstration for grants to train professionals to provide SUD and mental health treatment;
    • Pediatric Mental Health Access Grants:$11 million for Pediatric Mental Health Access Grants to expand access to behavioral health services in pediatric primary care settings;
    • National Institute of Mental Health: $2.2 billion for mental health research at NIH, an increase of $115.2 million; and
    • School-Based Mental Health: $111 million, an increase of $90 million, for grants through the Department of Education to increase the number of qualified school-based mental health providers in K-12 schools.
  • Public Health Preparedness:
    • $715 million, a $20 million increase, for programs that help America’s communities and hospitals prepare for, respond to, and recover from public health and medical disasters and emergencies. These events include natural disasters, pandemic diseases, and man-made threats;
    • $75.4 million, a $12 million increase, for the National Disaster Medical System;
    • $745 million, an increase of $148.3 million, for the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Agency; and
    • $845 million, an increase of $140 million, for the Strategic National Stockpile.
  • Alzheimer’s Research and Care: The bill increases investments in groundbreaking Alzheimer’s research and caregiver support for one of America’s most costly and prevalent diseases. The cost of caring for people with Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia is expected to increase from $355 billion this year to $1.1 trillion by 2050, with Medicare and Medicaid paying roughly 70% of the total cost. The bill provides:
    • $3.48 billion for Alzheimer’s disease research, an increase of $289 million. Under Blunt’s subcommittee leadership, there has been a five-fold funding increase for Alzheimer’s research;
    • $30.5 million, of which $25.5 million is for the BOLD Infrastructure for Alzheimer’s Act to create a national public health infrastructure to increase early detection and diagnosis and support prevention efforts. This is a $10 million increase for BOLD; and
    • $29.5 million, an increase of $2 million, for expanding direct services through the Alzheimer’s disease program at the Administration for Community Living.
  • Community Health Centers: $1.75 billion for Community Health Centers, an increase of $65 million. As co-chair of the Community Health Center caucus, Blunt has led efforts, along with U.S. Senator Debbie Stabenow (Mich.), to reauthorize mandatory funding for the program. There are more than 330 sites in Missouri, with Missouri health centers receiving $112 million in federal grant funding to serve more than 606,000 patients a year.
  • Medical Student Education: $55 million for Medical Student Education for states with the highest projected primary care physician shortages in 2025. Funding will provide supplemental grants to both the University of Missouri and University of Missouri-Kansas City, which have received $19.8 million since the program started in FY2019.
  • Pediatric Pandemic Network: $18 million for a regional pediatric network made up of children’s hospitals to prepare for and respond to global health threats, started in FY2020.
  • Rural Health: $366.1 million for Rural Health Care programs, an increase of $36.6 million. The obstacles faced by patients and providers in rural communities are unique and often significantly different from those in urban areas. Funding for rural health care programs has more than doubled under Blunt’s leadership.
    • Delta States Network Rural Development Network Grant: $25 million, an increase of $1 million, to continue a program to help underserved rural communities in the Delta identify and better address their health care needs. This includes $13 million for the Delta Region Community Health Systems Development (DRCHSD) program, which started under Blunt’s leadership, to help small rural hospitals improve their financial and operational stability. There are currently eight Missouri facilities participating in the program, including four medical centers in Potosi, Sikeston, and Perryville that were added in 2020.
  • Children’s Hospitals Graduate Medical Education (CHGME): $375 million, a $25 million increase, for the CHGME program, which protects children’s access to high quality medical care by providing freestanding children’s hospitals with funding to support the training of pediatric providers. In Missouri, Children’s Mercy Hospital in Kansas City and St. Louis Children’s Hospital received close to $14 million last year in combined funding from this program. This funding level represents an increase of $110 million for CHGME, or 41%, under Blunt’s leadership since FY2016.
  • Adoption Opportunities: $48 million, an increase of $3.9 million, to help remove barriers to adoption and find permanent homes for children, particularly children with special needs.
  • AmeriCorps: $534.3 million, an increase of $13.6 million, for AmeriCorps State and National grants and $230.8 million, an increase of $5.8 million, for AmeriCorps Seniors programs. Last year, more than 5,500 AmeriCorps and Senior Corps members helped address local needs in schools and communities across Missouri. Blunt has also cosponsored legislation to expand national service programs to help the nation respond to and recover from the COVID-19 pandemic.
  • Community-Based Child Abuse Prevention: $65.7 million, an increase of $5 million, to support community-based efforts to prevent child abuse.
  • Family Violence and Prevention Services: $200 million, an increase of $17.5 million, to provide services and temporary shelter for victims of domestic violence, and $15.5 million, an increase of $2.5 million, for the National Domestic Violence Hotline.
  • Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP): $3.8 billion, an increase of $50 million, to help low-income households with home heating and cooling costs.
  • Runaway and Homeless Youth Program: $120.2 million, an increase of $3.5 million, for services and temporary shelter for homeless youth.
  • Missouri Behavioral Health and Primary Care Funding: The legislation supports continued investments in primary care and behavioral health facilities throughout Missouri. The bill provides:
    • $10 million for Jordan Valley Community Health Center to create a Women and Children’s Health and Life Skills Center in Springfield, Missouri.
    • $12 million for a Center for Excellence for the Missouri Primary Care Association and Missouri Behavioral Health Council to enhance the integration of care and improve access to health care for Missourians.
    • $2.5 million for University Health, to build a state-of-art substance use treatment center for those in the Kansas City region, ensuring access to high-quality care for those with substance use disorders.
  • Missouri Hospital Funding: The legislation prioritizes investments in Missouri’s hospital facilities. The bill includes:
    • $7.3 million for BJC Healthcare for modifications to a planned campus expansion to design for future pandemics.
    • $2 million for St. Louis Children’s Hospital to purchase of a mobile intensive care, so patients ranging from pre-term infants to adults will have access to critical care during their transport to the hospital.
    • $4.6 million for SoutheastHealth Center for upgrading its diagnostic and therapeutic services in its Cardiac Imaging Center. These services will expedite diagnosis and provide timely therapy intervention in medically unserved communities.
  • Missouri Job Training And Education Funding: This legislation supports investments in STEM job training and education programs. Specifically, the bill provides:
    • $30 million for the Ozarks Health and Life Science Center at Temple Hall at Missouri State University , which will house classrooms, labs, and offices to support STEM, health, and life sciences research, and academic programs.
    • $1.5 million for Ozarks Technical College to expand its existing health sciences and technical programs to include high-demand, high-wage fields such as nursing and surgical technology. The bill also includes $3 million for the OTC Airframe and Powerplant Maintenance Training Program.
    • $3 million for Kansas City University (Joplin campus) to expand their dental training and faculty recruitment for underserved rural and minority populations, and to address the significant oral health needs in southwest Missouri.
    • $13 million for University of Missouri-Kansas City expansion of the St. Joseph Medical School Campus, which will afford medical students the opportunity to learn and train in a rural and underserved community.
  • Missouri Disability Resources:The bill supports programs for those with intellectual and developmental disabilities, autism, and training for counseling programs. Specifically, the bill provides:
    • $500,000 for Best Buddies to provide instructional services for middle and high school students with intellectual disabilities.
    • $900,000 for Truman State University to expand their music therapy and counseling degree programs. Students in these programs will be able to do clinical training at the Greenwood Autism Center.