The Senate voted overwhelmingly to move forward a bill advancing medical cures, mental health and opioid abuse priorities, setting it up for final passage later this week.
The measure is a mashup of two big projects carried out by several House members over the past few years. It combines Reps. Fred Upton and Diana DeGette’s legislation reforming the Food and Drug Administration with a major mental health bill from Rep. Tim Murphy, and tacks on additional funding to counter the opioid abuse crisis.
“It’s legislation that can have an impact on each of our states, and on each of our constituents,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said on the Senate floor.
While the measure, which advanced on a 85-13 vote, has broad bipartisan support, and President Obama has said he will sign it into law, some Democrats were frustrated that it didn’t provide more money for fighting opioid abuse and allowing the FDA to put the reforms in motion.
“This cures bill is not everything I would like it to be, I think it’s too weak in some parts and I think we could have done better,” said Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, saying the funding should have been “far more” and “given in a different way than we have here.”
“But it’s money, and we have people dying as a result of this scourge,” Reid said, referring to the soaring problem of opioid abuse.
The $3.6 billion bill provides $500 million more to the FDA, $4.77 billion more to the National Institutes of Health and $1 billion for opioid abuse prevention over a decade. It also gives drug makers new pathways for getting their drugs approved by the FDA and aims to simplify and improve dozens of overlapping mental health programs.
McConnell said the Senate will vote later this week to pass the bill and send it to the White House.
