SEC. 2. FINDINGS. 
Congress finds the following: 
(1) The National Institutes of Health (referred 
to in this section as the ‘‘NIH’’) is the leading bio-
medical research entity in the world. It supports re-
searchers in every State as they discover treatments 
and cures to prevent and reduce human suffering. 
Thanks in large part to NIH-funded medical re-
search, Americans today are healthier and living 
longer. Life expectancy in the United States has 
jumped from 47 years in 1900 to 78 years in 2009, 
and disability in people over age 65 has dropped 
dramatically in the past 3 decades. 
(2) Over the past 40 years, NIH-supported re-
search contributed to the discovery of over 150 Food 
and Drug Administration-approved new drugs, new 
vaccines, and new indications for current drugs. 
(3) The application success rate is below his-
toric averages. From 1980 to 2003, the last year of 
the doubling, the grant application success rate 
ranged between 25 and 35 percent. By 2016, the 
grant success rate had fallen to 19.1 percent. 
(4) NIH is vital to the United States economy 
and supports more than 400,000 jobs across the 
country. 
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(5) Economists have estimated the return on 
each dollar of investment in NIH to generate any-
where from $1.80 to $3.20 in economic output. The 
Federal investment of $3.8 billion in the Human Ge-
nome Project from 1988 to 2003 helped drive $796 
billion in economic output, which is a return of $141 
for every $1 invested. 
(6) The historic doubling of Federal funding for 
the NIH ended in fiscal year 2003. Since that time, 
NIH appropriations have not kept up with bio-
medical inflation. 
(7) If NIH had kept up with biomedical infla-
tion, NIH’s appropriation would have totaled $41.9 
billion in 2018, more than $4 billion than it re-
ceived. To restore funding to the 2003 post-doubling 
level would require Congress to appropriate $45.5 
billion in fiscal year 2021, the final year of the 
Budget Control Act of 2011 (Public Law 112–25). 
(8) High health care costs from a variety of 
common conditions threaten Federal, State, and 
local budgets, as well as the budgets of American 
families. Recent estimates indicate that the economic 
costs of Alzheimer’s disease is over $200 billion each 
year but will rise to over $1 trillion by 2050 unless 
a prevention or cure is found. In 2006, economists 
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found that a future 1 percent reduction in mortality 
rates from cancer would save $500 billion to current 
and future Americans. A cure for cancer was esti-
mated to save $50 trillion to Americans, more than 
3 times the gross domestic product of the United 
States in 2012. The Centers for Disease Control and 
Prevention reports that annual costs from undiag-
nosed diabetes was $245 billion each year. And a re-
cent study projects that by 2030, nearly 44 percent 
of the United States population will face some form 
of cardiovascular disease costing a total of $1.2 tril-
lion between 2012 and 2030. 
(9) Budget cap adjustments are how Congress 
traditionally prioritizes areas of spending that 
produce economic growth and reduce costs that con-
tribute to the Federal debt. 
SEC. 3. CAP ADJUSTMENT. 
Section 251(b)(2) of the Balanced Budget and Emer-
gency Deficit Control Act of 1985 (2 U.S.C. 901(b)(2)) 
is amended— 
(1) by redesignating subparagraph (D) as sub-
paragraph (E); and 
(2) by inserting after subparagraph (C), the fol-
lowing: 
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‘‘(D) 
NATIONAL
INSTITUTES
OF 
HEALTH.— 
‘‘(i) IN GENERAL.—If a bill or joint 
resolution making appropriations for a fis-
cal year is enacted that specifies amounts 
for the National Institutes of Health at the 
Department of Health and Human Serv-
ices (75–9915–1–1–552), then the adjust-
ments for that fiscal year shall be the 
amount of additional new budget authority 
provided in that Act for such programs for 
that fiscal year, but shall not exceed— 
‘‘(I) 
for 
fiscal 
year 
2019, 
$5,000,000,000 in additional new 
budget authority; 
‘‘(II) 
for 
fiscal 
year 
2020, 
$7,000,000,000 in additional new 
budget authority; and 
‘‘(III) for fiscal year 2021, 
$8,400,000,000 in additional new 
budget authority. 
‘‘(ii) DEFINITIONS.—As used in this 
subparagraph: 
‘‘(I) ADDITIONAL
NEW
BUDGET 
AUTHORITY.—The 
term 
‘additional 
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new budget authority’ means the 
amount provided for a fiscal year, in 
excess of $37,084,000,000, in an ap-
propriation Act and specified to sup-
port the National Institutes of Health. 
‘‘(II) NATIONAL INSTITUTES OF 
HEALTH.—The term ‘National Insti-
tutes of Health’ means the appropria-
tions accounts that support the var-
ious institutes, offices, and centers 
that make up the National Institutes 
of Health.’’. 
Æ 
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