tv [untitled] July 27, 2017 2:02pm-2:22pm EDT
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again, here on c-span3 we're live in the white house briefing room waiting for the incoming press secretary sarah huckabee sanders and today's white house briefing. it should get underway shortly. while we wait for it to begin, a portion of today's with the washington journal from earlier. >> joining us from capitol hill this morning is your senator rob portman, a republican of ohio, and, senator, thank you for joining us. i think you heard michael a little bit there. he says he agrees with you and your effort to make sure that there's funding in any sort of health care repeal effort to address the opioid situation.
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but he wants to know where that money would go. what would it be used for? >> well, first, thanks for having me on. i did hear the end of michael's question. and he's right. we have a crisis right now. and we need to ensure that we're having not just the ability to get people into treatment but even longer term recovery because that's more successful. i probably met with a thousand or more recovering addicts or addicts in the last few years alone as we've put together this legislation that's called the comprehensive addiction recovery act and also the cures act and the notion is to get the money to treatment centers so that people have access to treatment, but also sober housing and longer term recovery because, again, we know that is going to lead to more successful results. and that's what we've been promoting. of course in the recent health care debate as well there's a $45 billion fund that is part of the senate package that we voted on the other night that would provide the states the funding to be able to continue what is
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already there, which is called the cures act. although it's now going to be the higher level. and the $45 billion figure was derived because there is a good study out there in the journal of american medicine done by researchers at harvard and nyu that says about $4.5 billion a year is used by medicaid expansion for the treatment of opioid, in other words people who are addicted are getting treatment through the expansion. we want to ensure those people continue to get access to treatment because the alternative is far worse, which is overcrowding the emergency rooms and frankly ending up overcrowding our jails and continuing to commit crimes that are associated with paying for the addiction habit. and, you know, not going to work, not being able to achieve their god given purpose in life. all those are bad results sochlt in a state like mine where we probably have sadly over 200,000 people who are now addicted, we
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need to be sure we are getting people into treatment. we think that probably eight out of ten people who should be in treatment are not in treatment, so there is unfortunately, again, a tough situation now where you got a higher demand than we have treatment facilities. so we don't want to reduce that ability to have access to treatment. we want to get people into treatment. longer term the solution as was talked about a moment ago by michael is prevention and education. we've got to read up our efforts there immediately. but that's something that's got to happen in my view starting very young. i think it's a k through 12 proposition, and then continuing this effort as mothers against drunk driving did, as we did with regard to smoking cessation for everybody to be able to understand the dangers of opioids, specifically the connection between prescription drugs that are painkillers and the opioid crisis because many
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people don't know that. a and inadvertently through accident or injury get involved in taking pain medication that then causes an addiction. a physical change in their brain to become addicted. and that's something we can certainly address directly through an aggressive public service campaign that is simply not being done now. you recall, gretta, back in the 1980s the big effort with regard to the anti-drug effort. it did have results. we did have a reduction at that time in the use of drugs. we need to get back to that again in this case with regard to the opioid crisis, prescription drugs, heroin, the new synthetic heroins like fentanyl that are sadly flowing into our country. >> senator, your colleagues on the joint economic committee, the democrats on that committee, have put together their analysis, and they say the $45 billion that you've pushed for falls far short for all states including the state of ohio. they say that opioid treatment
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could reach $220 billion by 2026. >> well, $45 billion is a lot of money, gretta. and it's historic. it's unprecedented. we've never tried something like this before. i'm not sure what numbers they're talking about. i suppose they're saying that with regard to treatment across the board that's true, but this is just in addition to treatment across the board. in other words, it doesn't say that there wouldn't continue to be treatment, so i'm not sure what number they're talking about. the $45 billion if it were distributed to the states in the way the formula works under what's called the cures act, which is the current law, which provides for $500 million a year instead of the $4.5 billion that's being proposed, that formula would result in a state like ohio, for instance, because one of the states unfortunately hardest hit, receiving about $240 million, maybe $250 million a year for this purpose. we've never had those kinds of funds before.
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so let's be sure that we are using the money wisely. the one thing i think is really important is when you have a program like this that you ensure that the funds are being used in evidence-based programs, that we're not just throwing money after a problem but that we're actually using it in a way that focuses on what works. and i mentioned earlier some things that work better than others including this longer term recovery reality out there that we spent three years researching before we came up with our comprehensive addiction recovery act. we had five conferences here in washington, we brought in experts from all over the country, what's the best practices, what's working in maine, what's working in california, what can be spread around the states. and the funding is directed at those kinds of purposes. so we need to be careful here that we aren't just coming up with new funding but without the kind of evidence behind it, the kind of science behind it to know that it's working, whether it's prevention or treatment or recovery. so this is a tough issue.
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it's the number one cause of death now surpassing car accidents in my home state of ohio. and my people think it's the number one cause of accidental death now in the country. we have a drug epidemic that's worse than we've ever had in the history of our country. i've been involved in this issue for over 20 years. i started my own anti-drug coalition in cincinnati, ohio, that's still in existence about 22 years ago. and it's changed a lot since then. at that point it was more focused on cocaine, more focused on marijuana, to a certain extent methamphetamine because crystal meth, you know, is an issue as well. and then we saw the prescription drugs sort of creeping into ohio, and that has translated now into this issue of opioids which is prescription drugs and heroin and now this new synthetic heroin. and frankly, in my home state, the biggest increase we see right now is the synthetic heroins, fentanyl, u4, as you
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know this comes in primarily by the u.s. mail system, primarily labs and other countries, primarily china. as you know i've got legislation called the stop act with senator klobuchar, bipartisan legislation to at least require the post office to require that there be advanced information as to where a package is coming from, what's in it, where it's going so that law enforcement who strongly support our legislation can identify these packages and keep some of this poison out. current situation is really scary where people are getting fentanyl through the mail and then distributing it and using it. and frankly it is more deadly than heroin, probably 50 to 100 times stronger. and it's resulting not just in more overdoses but more deaths per overdose. so we've got a real crisis on our hands. >> so given the crisis, the situation in your state, the fact that you've worked on this for so many years, if in the end
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there is only a skinny repeal, if you will, to vote on, that is it repeals the mandates on individuals and employers and takes away the taxes, if that is the final package that you get to vote on in the senate, and it doesn't include funding for the opioid crisis, will you vote for it? >> well, we'll see what's in the final package. i don't know what's in it. i've heard about four or five different descriptions. you just gave one. it's possible. the $45 billion is focused on those who would not continue to be covered under the medicaid expansion and that skinny package you're talking about of course would not include dealing with medicaid expansion. so some would argue that that would continue the coverage that's out there now and that might be better. i don't think that's better for the country not to have a replacement for the affordable care act. i don't think that it's wornging for ohio or our country. in terms of the affordable care act, to back up on that, we now
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have 19 counties in my home state without an insurance company in the individual market. this is the exchange market another 27 counties with only one insurer. that's not competition. that's why prices have gone up dramatically in my state, about double for individuals, about 82% for small businesses. this is premium of course, and then we've also got skyrocketing deductibles. so a lot of people who have health care it's like i don't even have it because my deductible's so high. these are issues that do have to be addressed. and the package you just talked about in my view wouldn't address those issues and they'd leave a lot of people high and dry. so i would hope we can do better than that, that we can do more than that and include the $45 billion as we talked about. but we'll see what that package looks like. i do think the affordable care act, the status quo is not sustainable. it's not working for ohio. and we need a replacement, not just a repeal, but a replacement that really works. >> well, senator rob portman,
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republican of ohio, we thank you for spending some of your day with us this morning. i know it's a busy day for all of you senators with this debate on health care. so we appreciate it. thank you very much. >> thanks, gretta. thanks for having me on. thanks for your focus on the opioid issue. just by talking about it be in a position to help people and save lives because this is a true crisis. and the more information people have the better off we'll be. >> yeah, we appreciate it, senator. thank you. >> thank you. >> it's a conversation that we're having with all of you this morning about the opioid situation where you live telling washington by calling into this program this morning what you're seeing, how it's impacting you and what do you want lawmakers to do about it on the federal level or state level, what's it like? let's go to bonnie in pennsylvania. you're on the air. >> caller: good morning, gretta. the gentleman that just spoke, the senator, he was 100% on the
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money. here in pennsylvania we have a county, mercer county, where legislators want to discontinue the dispensation of narcan because they're saying it ties up their officers, it ties up their emt, it costs money and the addicts should not be resuscitated but should just fend for themselves. and people don't understand if you have the chemical addiction in your brain, you have no choice but to acquire these drugs to live a normal life. >> all right, bonnie, zack in ethridge, tennessee. zach, what do you think? >> caller: i think your last caller was wrong, you can lead a horse to water but can't make imdrink and you can take a kid to school but can't make him think. my wife worked at a drug and alcohol addiction center and one of the counselors there was a former addict, and when he had dental work he wouldn't even take a tylenol. we have a crisis in our country, and it's not an opioid crisis,
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it's a personal responsibility crisis. the government, you mentioned the state or the federal level, what are they going to do? they can't. you can't throw enough money at someone to make them not take drugs. >> okay. zach's thoughts there in tennessee. edward, keyport, new jersey. edward, good morning. >> caller: yeah, i would like to say that they should address the fact that people are working longer and harder for less. you know, the reason why people are doing these drugs is because they think society has nothing to offer them and there's nothing there. and i would also like to say that this $20 billion a year we spend prosecuting marijuana needs to end and just need to get the legalization effort straightforward. people wouldn't be exposed to hard drugs if they could just buy marijuana in stores. so we need to address these issues. but definitely the income inequality, the fact that people don't need to do drug ifs they have a quality of life that's worth living. thank you. >> all right.
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edward there in the state of new jersey, keyport, new jersey. let's go back to capitol hill, senator sheldon whitehouse, democrat of rhode island, senator, if you could explain for our viewers what the situation is like in rhode island with the opioids. >> rhode island is not the hardest hit state in the country, but it's one of the hardest hit states in the country. we had more than 250 people die last year of opioid overdoses. fortunately, i think we're responding well. our governor has a good statewide plan. our recovery groups are very active and we're developing new techniques like having recovery experts embedded right in police departments so that they can follow up when there have been incidents that have involved law enforcement to make sure everybody understands what their optio options with respect to recovery treatment, and to deal with
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people in crisis, and make sure that they're getting the help that they need, so we're pushing forward. but it remains a very, very formidable hazard. it seems like every step we take forward, there's another advance in the drug. we've gone from heroin to fentanyl to car fentanyl and it's getting so dangerous now that law enforcement people sometimes have to respond in hazmat suits. >> what is the cost, senator, to the state of rhode island? >> i wouldn't know, but it's considerable. i mean, my god, when you have 270, i think it is, people dead, that's a toll in lives that dwarves any concern about, to me anyway, about money. we are losing way too many people and very, very often they are very, very good people. >> well, senator, what do you think should be done on the federal level to address this? senator rob portman -- >> you just had senator portman on, he and i wrote the comprehensive recovery act, that needs to be implemented and
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needs to get the attention of the trump administration, they need to fill relevant positions and they need to implement that law. we're also owed the second half billion dollars in funding that we were promised, that needs to be part of the september funding resolution and finally, they need to stop trying to knock down medicaid when medicaid is the support for so many families who have addiction as an issue in the family. >> senator, how do you respond to a couple of callers who've said this is a personal responsibility issue? that you can't throw enough money at it to make people not use drugs. >> you can have all the personal responsibility you want, but if you don't have access to medicated assisted treatment works, if there isn't somebody there when you reach out so that you can start your path to sobriety, then that's not going to work. yeah, there's some tough decisions that people have to make when they have an addiction, but if the support
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network isn't there for them, if the medical support isn't there for them, then you're going to continue to lose these good people to overdoses. it's a human tragedy. we've got a little town up in northern rhode island called burlville, when i started working on this they had lost six people just in the first quarter of that year, just in the first three month, a small town about 5,000 people, you take six deaths out of that town and it's like beating on a bruise. it just hurt them and hurt them and hurt them again. so it's important that we respond. and i think that addicts aren't discardable or disposable people. there is a way to help them on the path to recovery. i tell you what, when they're on that path, it's a hard and it's a noble path. people show a lot of personal bravery, a lot of personal resilience when they are on that path. so we shouldn't dep ra kate them. >> another sentiment we're
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hearing this morning from viewers as we spend three hours talking about this opioid situation is those that take opioids for pain management and they do it responsibly and telling us that they get such a hard time now when they go to get their prescription filled or when they go to see their doctor. how do you address that situation, senator? >> yeah, it's a tough balance. i actually started in on this issue as attorney general years ago trying to make sure people getting near the end of their life were getting adequate pain treatment because doctors were shy about prescribing these drugs because of dea oversight and so forth. so it does swing back and forth. but what the comprehensive recovery act does is to -- good afternoon. before we get started on some of the q and a, i would like to bring up tom homan, some of you may know and remember the acting director of the u.s. immigration
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