By Emily Field

Law360 (April 9, 2021, 7:53 PM EDT) -- The Biden administration on Friday released a $131.7 billion budget request for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services for fiscal year 2022 that includes increased funding to combat the coronavirus pandemic and the opioid crisis, which has worsened over the past year.

The White House's ambitious spending plan calls for an $8.7 billion investment in the Centers for Disease Control, the largest budget increase for the agency in nearly 20 years, which the administration says is needed to restore its capacity.

Overall, the request for HHS is $25 billion more than the previous fiscal year and directs money into cancer research and other public health crises beyond the pandemic, such as health problems brought on by racial disparities.

"COVID-19 shed light on how health inequities and lack of federal funding left communities vulnerable to crises," HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra said in a statement. "The president's funding request invests in America, addresses racial disparities in health care, tackles the opioid crisis, and puts us on a better footing to take on the next public health crisis."

In a letter to congressional leadership, Acting Director of the Office of Management and Budget Shalanda Young said the budget proposal expands on initiatives launched under the American Rescue Plan Act, signed into law in early March.

"Together, America has a chance not simply to go back to the way things were before the COVID-19 pandemic and economic downturn struck, but to begin building a better, stronger, more secure, more inclusive America," Young said.

Additionally, President Joe Biden's plan proposes $905 million for HHS to replenish the strategic national stockpile of medical supplies and for restructuring efforts that began amid the pandemic. The plan calls for unnamed investments to build on the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's "organizational capacity."

The plan also would direct $6.5 billion to establish a new federal body, the Advanced Research Projects Agency, that would focus on research on cancer and other chronic diseases like diabetes and Alzheimers. That proposal is included in an overall request for $51 billion to the National Institutes of Health.

Both cancer and drug addiction are personal to President Biden — his son Beau died of brain cancer in 2015, and he has been candid about his other son Hunter's struggles with addiction.

Significantly, the administration's plan seeks what it says is an historic investment of $10.7 billion directed to the opioid crisis — nearly $4 billion more than the 2021 enacted level. Those funds would be directed to states and Native American tribes, as well as for federal research into opioid addiction and treatment.

About two-thirds of drug overdoses involve opioids, which have soared over the course of the pandemic. Fatal overdoses declined 4% from 2017 to 2018, but began ticking up again in 2019. The period from June 2019 to May 2020 saw 81,000 overdose deaths, the most ever recorded in a 12-month period and 18% more than the preceding 12 months, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Pre-existing and already stark racial health disparities have also been "laid bare" by the pandemic, the administration said in the discretionary request. To address those, Biden is seeking $8.5 billion in discretionary funding for the Indian Health Service, as well as additional funding to increase the diversity of health care workers.

$150 million would also be directed to the CDC to help states improve "health equity and data collection for racial and ethnic populations," according to the proposal.

The difficulties and stress of the pandemic have also increased the prevalence of mental health disorders in Americans and, to that end, the administration also proposes more than doubling the funding for mental health block grants to $1.6 billion.

--Editing by Philip Shea.

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