Health Care

“I am pleased to have the opportunity to work with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to craft legislation to address the growing prescription opioid and heroin epidemic gripping our country,” Courtney said. “I remain disappointed that the bills put forward by Senate and House leadership did not provide any new funding to address the growing drug abuse epidemic, but I am encouraged that the measure does include many well intentioned bipartisan initiatives to address this crisis. I will press my colleagues on the committee to include a provision similar to my bill that would provide emergency funding to stem the growing public health crisis brought about by drug abuse.”

“Today, there will be votes and a lot of self-congratulatory rhetoric about the fact that we are moving on something, but remember: there is not a penny for law enforcement, for treatment, or for prevention and education. Until we do that, we are kidding ourselves that we are going to turn this alarming, disturbing trend around. “We have an epidemic in this country which far surpasses any challenge presented by a natural disaster. If we had an attack on the homeland that took the number of lives that these maps represent – this Congress would be on fire! “To be clear, there is not a penny in either of these measures to help law enforcement, the police and fire who are responding to these crises day in, and day out. There is not a penny for treatment beds, for detox for long-term care treatment. In Connecticut, it takes 4-6 months to get into treatment. And there is not a penny for education. “If we had a hurricane, or a forest fire, or tornado that was ravishing parts of this country, or an attack on the homeland, this place would not hesitate on getting resources out there to help folks respond to that type of a crisis. Yet, somehow we can turn a blind eye to the thousands of Americans who are suffering from some type of addiction, to the thousands of law enforcement and fire personnel who are responding to these calls as we speak right now.”

“The Two-Midnight Rule was not a solution to the observation crisis for hundreds of thousands of Medicare patients across the nation,” said Courtney. “The arbitrary coding of observation status is plunging families into a Medicare black hole financially and medically. While I am pleased they have ditched the Two-Midnight Rule, it is time for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to join the 56 other organizations and 118 bipartisan cosponsors in supporting passage of my bill, the Improving Access to Medicare Coverage Act of 2015.”

“What I think is of concern is you just released new funding through HRSA to community health centers which is much appreciated, but there is no request for emergency funding this year. When you look at Zika [virus] and OCO funding this year, which Chairmen Kline and I will be voting on is billions of dollars in emergency funding for our overseas military operations on the Armed Services Committee, but when you look at that compared to a problem where we are losing 28,000 people per year."