The Full Spectrum Blog

On Tuesday, February 24^th, President Barack Obama laid out the state of the economy. In the speech, he described a "blueprint" for the future and focused on three major areas: energy, health care and education.

The President called the cost of health care crushing and said health reform would be a vital to the success of American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, which is now law.

The main focus of reform will be to lessen the cost of health care and expand coverage to the some 45 million uninsured Americans. President Obama tied the cost of coverage to the economy, saying, "it is one of the major reasons why small businesses close their doors and corporations ship jobs overseas."

Other areas of focus in the new Administration's health care reform effort are;

• Investment in electronic health records
• Seeking a cure for cancer
• Making the "largest investment ever in preventive care"

President Obama went on to say there will be competing ideas as to how to achieve these goals. In an effort to bring different expertise to the table, the White House will hold a meeting next week with individuals representing businesses, doctors, health care providers, Democrats and Republicans. The team at Spectrum will follow the developments and post it on this blog for you.

At the end of the speech, President Obama made one final, if not compelling, plea to Congress.

"...if we come together and lift this nation from the depths of this crisis, if we put our people back to work and restart the engine of our prosperity, if we confront without fear the challenges of our time and summon that enduring spirit of an America that does not quit, then some day, years from now, our children can tell their children that this was the time when we performed, in the words that are carved into this very chamber, "something worthy to be remembered."

For a full transcript of the speech, click here.

Erica Anderson, Senior Digital Strategist

This past Wednesday, Acting Director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Raynard Kington, M.D., Ph.D., presented a public briefing on how the organization would spend the $10.4 billion  it received in the stimulus package. After an amendment was made to the bill by Sen. Arlen Specter (R.-P.A.), the Senate agreed to add $6.5 billion to the already approved $3.9 billion.

The lingering question is how exactly this money will be spent in the two year timeframe.  The original plan was to divide the money between research and infrastructure (construction and maintenance of facilities) but now more emphasis is being put on the research end. NIH will have $8.2 billion to spend over two years for research alone.  Most will be distributed among NIH's institutes and centers (IC's), while the rest will be reserved for the Office of the Director to distribute.

Kington addressed the spending of the research portion and said it will be divided into three major "buckets."  The first deals with projects in the NIH Research Project Grant Program (RO1). 

"These will be determined with the expectation that the project can make significant scientific advances within the two years," Kington said.

The second bucket includes funding to supplement existing grants and the third bucket includes new programs under the NIH Challenge Grant Program.

Kington did not go into specifics about what projects will receive funding under each bucket, nor did he specify when more details would be released.  He did, however, say that the plan presented to Congress in a month will have more details.

Throughout the briefing, Kington repeatedly noted that the procedure is not business as usual. 

"We will have unprecedented reporting requirements and be transparent in what we do with this funding.  We have been given this money with the expectation that we will demonstrate to the American public exactly what it is used for.  We will be transparent with the number of jobs created and preserved and what the impact is on the economy."

Speculations have been made as to who will be appointed as the permanent director of NIH, despite the fact that no formal announcement has been made to date.   Dr. Francis Collins, former director of the National Human Genome Research Institute, is the leading nominee for the position according to a source present at a meeting with Obama's agency review team.  Kington did not address this issue during the briefing nor did anyone else present.

To learn more about the topics covered in the briefing visit NIH's website.

-Katie Halloran, Spring Intern