Sign up for our FREE E-Weekly for more coverage like this sent to your inbox!
During the first presidential debate, which took place earlier this month, Gov. Mitt Romney expressed his position on improving government spending by cutting or eliminating budgets for several programs, including public television.
“I’m sorry, Jim, I’m going to stop the subsidy to PBS. I’m going to stop other things. I like PBS, I love Big Bird. Actually like you, too. But I’m not going to … I’m not going to keep on spending money on things to borrow money from China to pay for. That’s number one,” Gov. Romney said.
That position comes from language found in a U.S. House Appropriations Committee bill that was introduced in mid-July, the same bill that also proposed to entirely cut funding for AHRQ. According to the columnist, that provision of the Republican bill barely received any attention.
“If the National Institutes of Health’s $30.6 billion fiscal 2013 budget request is such an important investment that it goes untouched in the House subcommittee budget, is there a rationale other than political pique over ‘Obamacare’ for eliminating AHRQ’s $0.4 billion budget entirely?” Michael Millenson proposed. “Now that Romney’s Big Bird budget has become a social media sensation, perhaps that’s a conversation we can finally have. Because the Americans harmed by unsafe care or overtreatment or undertreatment include Republicans, Democrats and those utterly indifferent to politics.”
More Articles on AHRQ:
AHA Urges AHRQ to Refine EHR Quality Measures
