Senate vote is 99-1 on bills to address opioids epidemic
The Washington Post
WASHINGTON — In a rare moment of bipartisanship, the Senate on Monday evening overwhelmingly passed a sweeping package of bills aimed at addressing the nation’s deadly opioids epidemic.
The vote was 99-1, with only Sen. Mike Lee, RUtah, dissenting.
President Donald Trump and Congress vowed a federal government response to a crisis that affects millions of Americans and is responsible for the deaths of close to 50,000 last year. Mr. Trump has declared the epidemic a public health emergency. It is one of the only major pieces of legislation that Congress is expected to pass this year as lawmakers gear up for the midterm elections in November.
The package of 70 Senate bills costs $8.4 billion and creates, expands and renews programs across multiple agencies. It aims to prevent the deadly synthetic drug fentanyl from being shipped through the U.S. Postal Service and allows doctors to prescribe more medication designed to wean addicts off opioids.
“It doesn’t include everything all of us want to see, but it has important new initiatives and it’s a step in the right direction,” said Sen. Rob Portman, ROhio, who has advocated several measures that are part of the package.
“Congress is committing itself to actually putting politics aside. It’s not just bipartisan — I think it’s nonpartisan.”
The bill includes several provisions sponsored or co-sponsored by Pennsylvania senators.
Republican Pat Toomey worked on a provision to expand a mandatory prescription monitoring program to include Medicare beneficiaries who have a history of overdosing.
Another Toomey measure would require electronic prescriptions for controlled substances covered through Medicare Part D.
Another provision would direct the National Institutes of Health to study alternatives to opioids for pain management and create an online system that would allow providers to monitor Medicare and Medicaid prescriptions as they’re filled.
“The federal government is the largest purchaser of opioids in the world, and as such has a unique responsibility to make sure the opioids the government is buying for people are being administered in an appropriate way,” Mr. Toomey told reporters on a conference call Monday. “Medicaid and Medicare have not been doing as much as they can …,” he said.
Bob Casey, a Democrat, worked on provisions calling for states to collaborate on care plans for opioid-exposed newborns and for the Department of Health and Human Services to recommend ways to combat opioid use during pregnancy.
Another Casey measure calls for a study of medication-assisted treatment programs.
Yet many public health advocates and experts say the legislation doesn’t offer the one thing desperately needed: The massive amount of funding needed to fully combat a crisis that deeply affects rural and urban communities across America.
Sarah Wakeman, medical director for Massachusetts General Hospital Substance Use Disorders Initiative, said to really target the depth of the opioid epidemic would require an infusion of federal dollars on par with the more than $20 billion a year spent on HIV/AIDs.
“We have historically not thought of addiction as a medical issue and so our health care and public health system are woefully unprepared to respond in a robust way,” she said.
The House passed a similar measure in June, and the two chambers will need to negotiate a few differences before sending the package to Mr. Trump.