Senate Appropriations Committee Takes on the Opioid Epidemic

On December 5, 2017, the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies held a hearing to discuss the opioid epidemic and the possible role that Congress could play in the prevention, treatment, and recovery. Senator Roy Blunt, the Subcommittee Chairman, opened the hearing by discussing the fact that overdose related deaths outnumber the deaths at the peak of the AIDS/HIV epidemic. Overdose deaths have also overtaken automobile accident fatalities to become the number one cause of accidental death in the United States. Senator Blunt also spoke about the three proposals he believes the Subcommittee needs to focus on moving forward. Those three proposals are: (1) understanding the best options for treating an opioid use disorder, including recognizing that behavioral health issues should be treated like any other physical health ailment; (2) stemming the number of individuals who become addicted in the first place, including improving surveillance to better understand where the problems are and where they are the most severe; and (3) developing new pain treatments as adequate alternatives to opioids. Senator Patrick Leahy, the Senate Appropriations Committee Ranking Member, also mentioned the high rate of opioid-related deaths and heavily criticized the Trump Administration for not budgeting more money to fight the epidemic, noting that the president’s declaration of a public health emergency was “all talk and no ac...
Source: Policy and Medicine - Category: American Health Authors: Source Type: blogs