March 13, 2023
Yesterday, President Joe Biden released his blueprint for the federal FY2024 budget. The White House said it was based on four key goals: "To invest in America, lower costs for families, protect and strengthen Medicare and Social Security, and reduce the deficit".
Lowering costs for working families includes proposals aimed at reducing healthcare costs achieved through: implementing permanent premium subsidies, negotiating more drug costs for Medicare, and limiting Part D cost sharing, including capping the cost for insulin for all individuals to $35 per month. The President's budget would also: lower housing costs; provide a national paid family and medical leave benefit; invest in cancer research and veterans' services; and provide "Medicaid-like" coverage to individuals living in states that have not adopted Medicaid expansion. Among the veterans services noted in a briefing today was prioritization of mental health and suicide prevention services.
Deficit reduction strategies include "making the wealthy and corporations pay their fair share, cracking down on fraud, and cutting wasteful spending on Big Pharma, Big Oil, and other special interests-all while ensuring no one making less than $400,000 a year pays a penny in new taxes". The proposed budget would reduce the deficit by $3 trillion over 10 years.
This overview fact sheet includes a paragraph on transforming behavioral health care. More on transforming behavioral health care can be found in a paragraph on page 77 of the full budget proposal, which is within the several pages devoted to the Department of Health and Human Services that begins on page 75. On page 143 in the full budget proposal is this chart, which, under the section labeled "Transform Behavioral Health", includes a budget line for converting the Certified Community Behavioral Health Clinic (CCBHC) demonstration program to a permanent program.
Other proposed investments in Biden's budget would be directed at pre-school and child care, manufacturing, maternal health, health equity, clean energy, food security, broadband internet and many other areas. The overview fact sheet describes these and the other investments the Administration is highlighting.
Links to additional fact sheets can be found here.
NJAMHAA will continue to provide details of the President's proposed budget, which is for the fiscal year beginning October 1, 2023, as well as on the many negotiations that will take place between now and then.
