Substance Use-Disorder Prevention That Promotes Opioid Recovery and Treatment for Patients and Communities Act
Floor Speech
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Mr. KING. Mr. President, the discussion today is about the opioid crisis, one of the most serious public health crises I have seen in my adult life, certainly in the State of Maine. It is an enormous problem across the country, particularly in rural areas. In my State, we are losing more than one person a day to an overdose death. That is an epidemic by anybody's definition.
There are few rays of hope in this rather bleak picture. The numbers continue to get worse. More and more families are being devastated by this crisis, and there aren't many answers being provided. There is, however, one ray of hope this bill we are going to be discussing and voting on this afternoon does provide, and that is, treatment works; recovery is possible.
I was at a rally in Portland, ME, just a week ago, with people of all ages from all over the State who were there to publicly say: I am in recovery. It works. Treatment saved my life. I think that is what is so important about continuing the work we have done in this body.
The problem is, treatment, particularly in rural areas, is short on infrastructure. It is short on people who can deliver the treatment. We can fund programs and talk about them here, but if you are talking about a rural county--about Milo, ME, in Piscataquis County, you are not talking about a tremendous amount of available infrastructure, but there is available an army of people who can contribute to the solution of this problem.
The people I am talking about are nurse practitioners. Nurse practitioners are, in many ways, among the unsung heroes in the healthcare discussion--particularly, again, in rural areas where there aren't a lot of physicians. Nurse practitioners were enabled in the CARA bill to provide medicine-assisted treatment, but the problem is, that authority expires in 2021. Therefore, we need to fix that. It is working. It is an important part of our ability to deliver these lifesaving services. In Maine, we have nurse practitioners who are ready, willing, and more than able, and they have proven that, to deliver these lifesaving services--1,700 of them in the State of Maine.
Unfortunately, the bill we are going to be voting on this afternoon does not have this extension in it. I am here this afternoon to urge those who are going to be supporting the bill, and then working on it in conference with the other body, to see that this small change-- giving the authority for nurse practitioners to deliver medically assisted treatment to those people suffering and trapped in the throes of addiction--allowing those nurse practitioners to have that authority, to not have it expire in 2021 and create the anxiety, both in the patient community and in the medical community, that termination will create.
Let's, for once, do something before it is a deadline. Let's do it now. I believe we can do it as part of this discussion, as part of the final resolution of the bill that is going to be before us this afternoon, which I entirely support. I think this is an important addition that will strengthen it, and it will particularly strengthen the ability to deliver this care, this treatment that is so important to so many people and families and communities, particularly in the smaller towns of rural areas of America and in my State of Maine.
So I rise to support the bill but also to suggest this small change that I think will dramatically increase the effectiveness of the treatment the bill enables and will allow it to be delivered in an equitable and direct and important way to people all across the country--no matter where they live, no matter what the status of their health infrastructure is--because, as I say, nurse practitioners are an army of people who are ready, willing, and able to deliver this service.
I hope we can make this one modification to this bill that will allow that service to be provided not only between now and 2021 but on into the indefinite future when, hopefully, we can rid the country of the scourge of this terrible opioid and drug addiction.
I believe this is something we can and should do. I look forward to working with my colleagues to make this happen.
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