The only federal agency whose main job is studying how health care works: what helps, what it costs, and whether patients stay safe.
AHRQ funds research on what care works, builds patient-safety tools, and runs some of the country's most-used health data (HCUP and MEPS). It also staffs the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, whose recommendations shape insurance coverage.
AHRQ's authorization lapses year to year, leaving its programs vulnerable to sudden funding gaps. And it's repeatedly targeted as duplicative, a claim the evidence contradicts: no other federal agency does what AHRQ does.
Reauthorize AHRQ with an expanded mandate, a $1 billion indexed funding floor, self-executing grantmaking timelines and anti-impoundment protection, and a director with a fixed term and for-cause protection.
Codify statistical-unit protections for AHRQ's core data programs.
Codify the methodological independence of the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force.
Create statutory links tying AHRQ's evidence products to specific federal decisions.
Make AHRQ the chair of a formal interagency health services research coordination body.
Codify the National Healthcare Quality and Disparities Report, with expanded disaggregation and AHRQ's role in the methodology.
Receive NCHS, the health workforce data functions, and the national drug use survey into the reauthorized AHRQ, each with protections against reversal.