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The American Diabetes Association is encouraged that the U.S. House of Representatives passed its Fiscal Year 2010 budget resolution. The 2010 budget resolution incorporates key priorities of President Obama's budget that will enable Congress to move forward on providing funding of diabetes research and prevention at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) as well as health care reform to address the related goals of reducing costs, improving quality, and expanding coverage.

The health provisions included in the budget will provide the opportunity for critical funding for the NIH and CDC. Additionally, the budget reflects a strong commitment to health reform by including $1.9 trillion over 5 years. As the budget process wraps up and the annual funding process begins, the American Diabetes Association is asking Congress for a $23.6 million increase for the CDC's Division of Diabetes Translation (DDT) – an investment of $1 for each person in the United States with diabetes – for a total of $84.447 million and a 7% increase ($123,293,660) for research at the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive Kidney Diseases (NIDDK) for a total of $1,884,631,660.

"We hope Congress will utilize this budget to support essential funding for NIDDK – which conducts research to garner a better understanding of diabetes and its complications and to the DDT – which takes that research and puts it into practice in our communities. At the same time, funding for health reform will enable Americans to prevent and better manage this devastating disease. During these difficult economic times, these requests are fiscally responsible because they hold the key to cutting the current $174 billion dollars diabetes costs our country each year," said George Huntley, CPA, Chair, American Diabetes Association.