type: timeline_event
Congress enacts the FY2026 Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies appropriations bill providing $221 billion in total funding including approximately $116.6 billion in discretionary funding for HHS. President Donald Trump signs the bipartisan legislation into law following House and Senate passage, with the measure largely tracking Senate funding levels proposed in summer 2025 and blocking deeper cuts proposed by the Trump administration. The enacted funding represents a significant rejection of HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s budget proposal that sought to reduce HHS discretionary spending from $127 billion to $95 billion—a 25 percent reduction.
The congressional appropriations preserve key agency funding levels: $49 billion for the National Institutes of Health (relatively flat from FY2025's $48.5 billion), $9.2 billion for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (versus Kennedy's proposed 54 percent cut to $5.6 billion), $7.3 billion for the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (level funding versus Kennedy's proposed 14.3 percent reduction), and $1.9 billion for Community Health Centers. The bill includes $535 million for the 988 Suicide Prevention Lifeline (a $15 million increase over FY2025) and a $53.3 million increase in rural health programs to boost provider recruitment and support rural hospitals.
The appropriations package includes major health policy extensions covering pharmacy benefit manager transparency reforms, future Medicare coverage for multicancer early detection tests, and multiyear extensions for telehealth, hospitals, and community health centers. Funding for Older Americans Act programs remains flat—considered a victory since Kennedy's original budget request zeroed out many key budget lines effectively ending those programs. The bill provides $2.8 billion (a $15 million increase) for mental health activities, $4.2 billion for substance abuse treatment, and $1.6 billion for State Opioid Response Grants.
Kennedy's rejected budget proposal would have slashed NIH funding by nearly $18 billion (43 percent reduction to $27.3 billion), consolidated HHS's 28 operating divisions into 15, eliminated dozens of federal healthcare and social welfare programs, terminated more than 5,000 contracts, and created a new $14 billion Administration for a Healthy America combining HRSA, SAMHSA, and CDC programs. The proposal included $500 million to establish a Make America Healthy Again Commission. Kennedy defended the cuts before House and Senate committees in May 2025, claiming the HHS workforce grew 70 percent under the Biden administration and arguing the department would "do more, a lot more with less" by cutting bureaucracy and focusing on chronic disease.
Research!America President Mary Woolley warns that if Kennedy's original proposal had been enacted, "Americans today and tomorrow will be sicker, poorer, and die younger." House Appropriations Committee Ranking Member Rosa DeLauro criticizes HHS budget and staffing cuts as inconsistent with health goals, noting the department has closed half of its regional offices serving 22 states and five territories and "eliminated entire divisions without consideration of what is being lost." The bipartisan congressional funding bill represents a rare check on executive branch health policy priorities, preserving scientific research capacity and public health infrastructure despite Kennedy's systematic dismantling efforts throughout 2025.