Heidi Alexander: “this morning, in Nashville, as I got on the plane, the headlines were not about tweets or collusion with Russia or even…”

“this morning, in Nashville, as I got on the plane, the headlines were not about tweets or collusion with Russia or even the Supreme Court nomination. The headline was this: Senate set to OK bill on opioids. Within a few minutes, we are about to vote in the Senate on legislation that Senator McConnell, the majority leader, has called ``landmark legislation.'' It is legislation that 72 of the 100 Members of this body have made a contribution to. They are not just cosponsoring it. They have a piece of this bill. This legislation has come through five different committees of the Senate, and we have been working on it for several months. The reason it is on the front page of the newspapers in Tennessee and the newspapers in Kansas and the newspapers in Wyoming and the newspapers in Maine is because opioids are our most serious public health epidemic, and the Opioid Crisis Response Act that we will be voting on in a few minutes is the Senate's response to this crisis. We will be voting on another important piece of legislation that the Senator from Maine, Ms. Collins, who is here, has talked about, and Senator McCaskill is a cosponsor. It is the Patient Right to Know Act. It basically does something that I think almost every American would think is a good idea.…”