Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to this rule. Throughout the Energy and Commerce Committee's process writing opioid legislation, I have raised the issue that we need to be making investments in the full spectrum of our behavioral health system in order to truly address the root causes and the results of the opioid epidemic. While crisis and high-level inpatient care will always be necessary for a subset of the population, and we must ensure it is adequately funded, we cannot do so in a vacuum. We need to ensure that people also have access to adequate outpatient treatment and prevention services. And while the opioid epidemic is front and center in all our minds, we cannot forget patients suffering from other substance use disorders. It is important that we do not unintentionally set up a discriminatory system that will be useless during the next epidemic, whatever that might be. We want our legislative efforts to both save lives today and to prevent epidemics like this one in the future. States already have the option to work around outdated exclusions in IMD facilities. States like California are already doing so in a comprehensive way, taking into account the continuum of care for opioid and other substance use disorders. If we are going to be spending an additional nearly $1 billion in the Medicaid program, we need to spend it wisely on expanding access to services, and not narrowly duplicating something that is already available.…”