Brittany Pettersen: “Mr. Chair, I am here to beg for your consideration in support of my amendment to address something that happened with…”

“Mr. Chair, I am here to beg for your consideration in support of my amendment to address something that happened with the reconciliation bill that changed the 1115 waiver. Now, this sounds incredibly wonky. An 1115 waiver to Medicaid is something that we are not going to be able to go home and talk to constituents about what we were able to do for them. Nobody knows what the 1115 waiver is. However, when you talk about the impacts that this has made, this is especially impactful when it comes to Colorado and what we have been able to do to address the opioid epidemic. In Colorado, we were able to utilize the 1115 waiver by proving that by covering substance use disorder treatment, we could save money over time. What happened in the reconciliation bill was language that said you actually had to prove that it was cost neutral up front and that you couldn't prove the cost savings over time. What this language will do, it will take our ability in Colorado away to utilize this waiver that has drawn down hundreds of millions of dollars for substance use disorder treatment. In fact, we were the second in the Nation to implement this waiver, and a total of 37 States now take advantage of this. Mr. Chair, 83 percent of people who are treated in the rural parts of Colorado and across the Nation are on Medicaid. This will significantly impact red States, blue States, and especially the rural places across the United States.”