Both houses of Congress passed similar versions of the Substance Use-Disorder Prevention that Promotes Opioid Recovery and Treatment for Patients and Communities Act, sending it to the White House for final approval by President Donald Trump.
House Resolution 6, or the SUPPORT for Patients and Communities Act, makes various changes to Medicaid, Medicare and opioid-related public health initiatives, including advancing treatment and recovery initiatives, improving prevention of addiction and use, protecting communities and improving efforts to combat the availability and use of synthetic drugs like fentanyl.
The bill was introduced to the U.S. House of Representatives on June 13. It passed in the House by a margin of 396-14 and was passed by the U.S. Senate last Wednesday by a vote of 98-1.
The opioid crisis is one issue that the two political parties agree needs to be solved. Democrat Richard Cordray and Republican Mike DeWine, the candidates for Ohio governor, agree that the issue is important, but they still clash over it, according to a Dayton Daily News report.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, from 1999 to 2016, more than 200,000 people fatally overdosed because of prescription opioids. Overdose deaths involving prescription opioids were five times higher in 2016 than in 1999.
Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, one of the co-authors of the bill, said in a news release last Wednesday that the package of bills is a “turning point” in the federal government’s efforts to combat opioid addiction.
“It’s a glimmer of hope at the end of a dark tunnel,” Portman said in the news release.
The National Institute on Drug Abuse states that Ohio is one of the top-five states with the highest rate of deaths related to opioid abuse. In 2016, there were 3,613 opioid-related overdose deaths in Ohio — a rate of 32.9 deaths per 100,000 people and more than double the national rate of 13.3 deaths per 100,000 people.
Many politicians and midterm election candidates in Ohio are focusing on the opioid crisis as a key issue leading up to the elections in November.
