Both the House and Senate continue their focus on the opioid
epidemic, with more congressional hearings and several pieces of legislation.
On April 25, the House Committee on Energy and
Commerce’s Subcommittee on Health hosted a nine-hour markup of 63 bills, all
designed to address the opioid crisis. The subcommittee advanced a total of 56
bills, and the votes were largely bipartisan. The mostly modest proposals
approved by the subcommittee so far focus on expanding access to substance
abuse treatment, building up the provider workforce and encouraging the use of
nonopioid pain treatments. Some more contentious provisions include additional
state requirements to target and monitor pharmacy coverage for at-risk persons
and add federal resources for hiring state Medicaid officials. Votes were also
required for provisions calling for drug utilization reviews and reporting on
graduate medical education programs, plus incentives for postsurgical
injections as a pain treatment alternative. An adopted amendment also seeks to
spur FDA approval of nonaddictive pain treatments. The measures were advanced
to the full committee for final markup, which is likely to happen in the next
few weeks.
On April 24, the Senate Health, Education, Labor
and Pensions (HELP) Committee unanimously passed the Opioid Crisis Response Act of 2018. The HELP committee approved a
handful of amendments by voice vote, including a measure to help medical
schools train more physicians to provide medication-assisted treatment. The
committee, voting along party lines, rejected a proposal to boost funding for
the National Health Service Corps offered by Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) to
build up the behavioral care workforce in underserved areas. Chairman Lamar Alexander
(R-TN) said the measure would cost $2.4 billion and was not necessary at this
time. Chairman Alexander said he hopes the Senate can move the opioid
legislation by this summer, noting that several other senate committees—Finance,
Judiciary and Homeland Security—will likely want to contribute to the effort as
well.