While committee members on both sides of the aisle have put a lot of time and thought into developing these bills, a majority are still in discussion draft form.

While they may be habituated they are not addicted.

I intend to oppose any bill that has nothing to do with opioids, that makes the problem worse, or that is simply not ready and vetted in the time that we have allotted.

But with more than 110 Americans dying daily from an opiate overdose, we must be willing to ask hard questions and seek solutions.

While committee members on both sides of this dais have put in a lot of time and thought in developing these bills, a majority are still in discussion draft form.

I think it is important, and I don't think there was anything that we heard today that was superfluous or duplicative or anything that actually wasn't important for us to hear.

I appreciate that you are focusing on providers, I appreciate you are focusing on patients, but I have got to tell you, one of the things that has been frustrating for me, the CMS has a lot of data at your disposal, and we have come up…

We should think creatively about how to help strengthen Medicaid and Medicare's ability to combat the scourge of opioid abuse.

We are the payer here. The federal government is the Aetna, United, the Cigna.

All Federal dollars need to be accounted for.

I am concerned about that because I think we will drive some of these individuals from their structured maintenance on an opiate for their chronic pain, and they will look for other avenues, and as we all know, those other avenues are…

I see that as continuity of care and actually good patient care.