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The Senate just passed a bipartisan bill to confront the opioid epidemic
German Lopez
Vox
October 3rd, 2018
Read the full story here.
Read the full bill here.
Read the section-by-section summary here.
German Lopez
Vox
October 3rd, 2018
What the SUPPORT for Patients and Communities Act does
For a full breakdown of Congress's bill, you can read the full text or a section-by-section summary. But here are some of the major policy changes in the bill:
- Reauthorizes funding from the Cures Act, which put $500 million a year toward the opioid crisis, and makes tweaks to hopefully give states more flexibility in using the funding.
- Creates a grant program for "Comprehensive Opioid Recovery Centers," which will attempt to serve the addiction treatment and recovery needs of their communities (in part by using what's known as an ECHO model).
- Lifts restrictions on medications for opioid addiction, allowing more types of health care practitioners to prescribe the drugs.
- Expands an existing program that attempts to get more first responders, such as police and firefighters, to carry and use naloxone, a medication that reverses opioid overdoses.
- Allows federal agencies to pursue more research projects related to addiction and pain.
- Makes several changes to Medicare and Medicaid to attempt to limit the overprescription of opioid painkillers within the programs and expand access to addiction treatment, including lifting some of the current restrictions that make it harder for Medicare and Medicaid to pay for addiction treatment.
- Advances new initiatives to educate and raise awareness about proper pain treatment among health care providers.
- Attempts to improve coordination between different federal agencies to stop illicit drugs like fentanyl at the border, and gives agencies more tools to improve detection and testing at border checks.
- Increases penalties for drug manufacturers and distributors related to the overprescribing of opioids.
Read the full story here.
Read the full bill here.
Read the section-by-section summary here.