House Dems introduce bill to provide $45B for opioid epidemic

Four House Democrats introduced a bill Thursday to provide $45 billion over 10 years to fight the opioid epidemic.

In late October, President Trump declared the opioid epidemic a national public health emergency — a move that didn’t free up millions of dollars to fight the increasing rate of opioid overdose deaths.

Democratic lawmakers and many advocates have said additional funding is needed to combat the crisis for an emergency declaration to be effective.

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The bill is a companion to one nearly 20 Senate Democrats have signed on to in the upper chamber. The move was a nod to the amount of funding Republicans included in failed legislation to repeal and replace ObamaCare in part to offset the legislation’s changes to Medicaid.

Democratic Reps. David Loebsack (Iowa), Ann McLane Kuster (N.H.), Carol Shea-Porter (N.H.) and Grace Napolitano (Calif.) introduced the measure in the House.