>> c-span, where history unfolds daily. as a79, c-span was created public service by america's cable television companies. today, we continue to bring you unfiltered coverage of congress, the white house, the supreme court, and public policy events in washington, d.c., and around the country. c-span is brought to you by your satellite or cable provider. senatehe week ahead, the is expected to spend much of the time on authorization for defense programs and policies for 2019. a vote to officially begin for monday on c-span 2. for more on the opioid epidemic, we spoke with a health care reporter on capitol hill.

week takes upext an-o gislio what opioid bill will open up? >> a lot of different committees have been involved. they have not decided which will go first. the main players in the house are the house energy and commerce committee which has 57 bills they have approved. and the house ways and means committee which was done in for -- four bill packages and 3 standalone. >> piece with the headline on it the scope of addiction crisis works response to opioids. tell us about some of the personal stories that you heard from lawmakers who have been affected by this and how widespread have you found the problem to be?

are there areas of the country that have gotten worse than others? huge problem that is affecting every district across the country. what we have found is that depending on which part of the country different opioids are affecting them in some areas, it is still prescription opioids and in other areas it is illegal drugs like heroin or fentanyl. depending on the area of the country, those have hit hard there. >> you quote one doctor in there saying that the problem is that we have not built a functioning treatment system. majority leader kevin mccarthy said the house will take up some 60 bills coming out of eight committees. will any of them deal with those -- with treatment. >> there are bills that work with medicaid and medicare and you'll with treatment. i think some of the experts we

spoke to are concerned that a lot of them are not addressing the full nature of the crisis. they are not looking at the aspects of opioid abuse. especially those synthetic drugs and delivering enough money to address the problem. >> what about the senate? are they addressing the problem? what measures might they be considering in the coming weeks? >> they are also addressing the crisis with a number of bills. the health committee has approved a bill in its committee that has over 40 proposals built into one bill. the senate finance committee is having a markup of their own opioid will. the judiciary committee is also working on their efforts to address the crisis. just this past week, the trump administration launched an ad campaign.

what else will the trump administration do? >> i think they are going to focus a lot on education efforts. that has been brought up the for. they will continue with this campaign. i think there will be, the surgeon general has made an emphasis on naloxone. it has encouraged people to carry it in case of an overdose. >> what surprised you the most in reporting on the issue? you and your cq colleagues? the issue of opioid addiction and the crisis that in your reporting has grown by leaps and bounds yet again between 2016 and 2017. one thing that we noticed is that, even though a lot of states are suffering from problems with the synthetic and illegal opioids, most of the bills that are being considered next week are related to prescription opioids. that is one of the reasons that the experts we talked to are concerned about how it is not addressing the scale of the problem. >> have there been experts in health care and legislators on the hill saying we need to do a comprehensive peace that is to combine and address many of the

issues that may not be being addressed by these bills? i think moving forward, they will do consolidating and put together a bigger hill package. right now, there are a lot of bills. >> sandhya raman, you can read at cq.com and also on order. and on twitter. thank you for the update. >> c-span's -- c-span's "washington journal" every hate with issues and stories impact you. coming up, darlene super bowl and mike the bone -- darlene mike debonis.

be sure to watch c-span's "washington journal" live at 7:00 eastern on monday morning area join the discussion. >> education secretary betsy commission set up by her department to study school safety would not focus on guns. she made the statement well testifying before a senate appropriations subcommittee about changes and proposed cuts to education department programs outlined in the