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Azar Defends FY 2019 Budget Request at Congressional Hearing

February 20, 2018

In his first appearance as HHS Secretary on Capitol Hill, Alex Azar fielded questions Wednesday about the Trump administration’s plans to address the opioid crisis and drug prices.

Despite its proposed 21 percent cut in total HHS funding, Azar defended the budget request at a House Ways and Means committee hearing and said it included strategies that would help deal with those two issues.

The budget would allow for revamping the National Institutes of Health to develop alternative therapies for pain management, he said. But Rep. Suzan DelBene (D-Wash.) pointed out that most of the proposed increase in the NIH appropriations would be allocated to folding other HHS programs into the NIH.

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