After a week of debates, the Senate passed a massive package including the HHS appropriations bill on Thursday evening.
The Senate has been pushing to ensure that funding bills are passed by Sept. 30 in order to avoid a government shutdown.
As The Hill reported, the Senate has now passed nine of the 12 appropriations bills needed with the $854 billion Labor-HHS-Defense-Education bill alone, accounting for roughly 60% of the 2019 appropriations bills.
While the health appropriations bill often attracts controversial and partisan amendments, leadership made a deal prior to this year to avoid attaching any such proposals that would threaten bipartisan support for funding bills.
One amendment that did make it into the mix? A bipartisan proposal introduced by U.S. Sens. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, and Dick Durbin, D-Illinois, that would provide $1 million to HHS to implement rules requiring drug companies to list prices of their prescription drugs in direct-to-consumer advertisements. (The Hill article, Release)
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