Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of H.R. 2281, the Easy Medication Access and Treatment, or Easy MAT, for Opioid Addiction Act, which was introduced by myself and my Committee on Energy and Commerce colleague, Mr. Ruiz. Emergency room clinicians are well positioned to interact with those struggling with opioid addiction and help transition them into treatment. Currently, an ER clinician who does not have a DATA 2000 waiver can only provide a 1-day supply of narcotic drugs to be used for medication-assisted treatment to an individual at one time for a total of up to 3 days. What does that mean? It means that while the patient waits to get into treatment, they have to go back to that same clinician on each of those 3 days to obtain medication. Now, in a rural district such as mine--which, by the way, is larger than the landmass of any State east of the Mississippi--this is not realistic, especially when there is already a shortage of health practitioners who are willing to treat patients with substance use disorder. One of my constituents, who I met in Hermiston, Oregon, told me she had to travel 5 hours--5 hours--just to find a physician who could oversee her Suboxone treatment because no one in her community was available to do that. H.R.…”