A bipartisan bill to combat rampant prescription drug abuse is quickly becoming a battleground over spending.
The full Senate is expected to soon consider the Comprehensive Addiction Recovery Act. But the bill may lose bipartisan support if Democratic senators’ requests for a $600 million funding amendment aren’t approved.
The Democrats’ effort to get $600 million in more funding received blowback from an opioid abuse advocacy group.
Sens. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, and Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., have been pushing the legislation, which takes a comprehensive look at the massive problem killing thousands of Americans each year. It wants to expand use of the overdose antidote Naloxone to first responders, expand disposal sites for unwanted prescription drugs and expand prevention and educational efforts.
Portman’s bill would also establish an evidence-based opioid and heroin treatment and intervention program, but that’s not enough for some Democrats.
Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., is expected to pursue an amendment seeking $600 milllion in emergency funds. She praised the bill but said that more resources are needed.
“What we need for treatment beds, what we need for law enforcement and prescription drug monitoring is resources, we need the funds and that is not in the CARA bill,” she said during a recent press conference.
The funding would be doled out to various grant programs.
For instance, the Department of Health and Human Services would receive $225 million that would be doled out to states to fund prevention, treatment and recovery support. Another $200 million would fund state and local law enforcement initiatives such as prosecution and drug court programs.
Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., took a more combative tone at the same Feb. 11 press conference.
“People who vote for the CARA bill and vote against the Shaheen amendment are not really solving the problem,” he said.
Schumer didn’t say that Democrats would filibuster the bill but noted that they would “fight hard to get the funding on the floor and we will cross that bridge when we come to it.”
Schumer partly blamed Republicans for low funding levels for treatment of addicts.
“Sequestration, which my colleagues on the other side of the aisle supported, cut the money available to fight this scourge and now we don’t have sequestration so we need to increase the dollars,” he said during a Senate Finance Committee hearing Tuesday.
Schumer’s comments and potential emergency funding request come as Democrats are pushing for more spending and emphasis on treatment for addiction.
“Mental health and treatment for addiction have gotten short-shrift for too long, and it’s high time for a change,” Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., said during the hearing Tuesday.
He said that the Finance Committee could be taking a look at what is called an IMD exclusion, which says that Medicaid can’t cover rehab or some emergency mental health stays.
“When you restrict access to opioids it is crucial that you step up treatment because everybody in healthcare is telling us that the addiction is not just automatically going away,” the senator said.
The bill was passed unanimously out of the Senate Judiciary Committee last week. Currently there is no schedule for bringing it to the floor, according to the Senate Majority Leader’s office.
Portman supports “additional resources to fight this epidemic, and he is happy to have that discussion, but he believes that getting [the bill] done now is critical because Ohio and other areas of the country need this help now,” spokesman Kevin Smith told the Washington Examiner.
A prominent heroin and opioid abuse advocacy group questioned the push for the funds in a letter to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Minority Leader Harry Reid.
The Harm Reduction Council was concerned that many of the programs outlined in the proposal “do not ensure the necessary degree of targeting and specificity, nor would they achieve sufficient and timely impact to warrant emergency supplemental appropriations outside of regular order,” the letter said.
It called on the Senate to take up the legislation as soon as it can.
The coalition noted that it appreciates the “bipartisan spirit” of the bill and requests that the Senate leaders “honor this bipartisanship as you work to advance the bill to the Senate floor.”
