Doris Matsui: “I thank Mr. Pallone for yielding to me and for his leadership. Mr. Speaker, while I believe that we need to do a lot…”

“I thank Mr. Pallone for yielding to me and for his leadership. Mr. Speaker, while I believe that we need to do a lot more to combat the opioid and addiction epidemic, I am pleased with some of the specific steps being taken today to help communities. I specifically rise in support of legislation I coauthored with Congresswoman Lynn Jenkins on H.R. 3331. In order to solve the root cause of addiction, we need more access to behavioral health in our communities, and we need to treat mental health and substance use disorder like diseases. That means integrating care and services for those conditions into the healthcare system. It means treating a person as a whole person. Physical and mental health conditions interplay and should be treated as such. We cannot have a truly integrated system with the care coordination we envision if behavioral health providers don't have electronic health records. We must work to harness the power of technology to improve the accessibility of behavioral health treatment, particularly in underserved communities. This bipartisan bill will incentivize behavioral health providers to adopt electronic health record technology. The Senate version of the bill, led by Senators Whitehouse and Portman, passed by unanimous consent last month, so I hope that we can continue the momentum around this legislation with the passage of H.R. 3331 today.…”