Finding A Comprehensive and Compassionate Solution to the Opioid Crisis

Floor Speech

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Ms. TENNEY. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize my bipartisan bill, the Expanding Oversight of Opioid Prescribing and Payment Act of 2018, which passed unanimously in the House Ways and Means Committee last week.

As a member of the bipartisan Heroin Task Force, I am committed to finding a comprehensive and compassionate solution to reverse the tide of the growing opioid addiction plaguing our communities and families.

With 115 people dying each day--and 635 in my own district in 2016 alone--from an opioid overdose, we must find ways to prevent this abuse from happening in the first place.

My bipartisan bill requires the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission to evaluate and report on adverse incentives that lead to the overprescription of opioids and underutilization of nonopioid alternatives for postsurgery recovery and the treatment of chronic pain.

This is commonsense legislation that will enable Congress to identify and eliminate perverse incentives that are fueling the opioid epidemic, the epidemic that is destroying our families and our communities.

I have personally known individuals in the 22nd District whose lives were taken too early because of this scourge.

This bipartisan bill is a step in the right direction to helping our families and communities combat this crisis that is tearing families apart.

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my bipartisan cosponsors, Representative Suzan DelBene and Representative David McKinley, for joining me in this important legislation.

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