concerning drug price and transparency. a final vote on both measures will take place at 5:30. the house returns on september 25. at that time, members will continue work on 2019 federal spending bills including one to extend government funding until december 7. current funding expires at the end of this month. c-spanhe house light on and the senate live on c-span two. what's going to happen with the opioid legislation? >> it is expected to pass overwhelmingly monday evening when the senate returns from there we get home. of 70 different bills and proposals from lawmakers democrats and republicans and independents area chipping away at the oberoi crisis. >> you must highlights of what will be in the bill.

>> thing that most people are talking about is the bill from senator from ohio. that will give the u.s. post office more power to stop the inflow of sentinel. -- fentanyl. >> the house has already passed a bill. what are the major differences between what is going to pass the senate on monday am earlier? >> the bills are very similar. is of the major differences the ind exclusion. medicaid.from the it does not allow medicaid to pay for mental health institutions. what happens there is people who need to get mental health and substance abuse help are not

able to use their medicaid. the house overturns that rule, the senate does not. >> we want you to join in this conversation about the soon to be passed bill in the senate about rattling the opioid crisis. if you are in eastern and central times him, we want you to call and on this number. mountain and pacific, call this number. if you have been impacted by the crisis and you want to weigh in on what congress should be doing, we want you to call in. earlier, the house passed bill a while ago. the senate is just getting around to it now. what were the objections that made the senate bill takes a long? >> mostly, it was the calendar. it was timing. supreme court nomination took up a lot of the oxygen. there were things they were tinkering with behind the

scenes. for the most part, it was their ability to edit in on the floor. >> what is been a reaction from the health industry and the advocacy groups because opioids have been a crisis for the last few years areas what is been the reaction from the industry? >> largely, it is women. it is a very small effort. there are a lot of grant programs and expanding of existing programs. there is no real additional funding. infusion of long-term >> what kind of spending does this bill provide? grant money from recovery centers. people with opioid edition. training,housing, job

other treatment and recovery services. and otherant program people would have to apply for this. it is not a universal federal program for everyone. one person public health isocates said to me the town ravaged by ravaging towns and cities all over the country. it is not indiscriminate, impacting democrats and republicans alike. both want to say they are doing something, which is why you see 70 proposals in this package. host: wilma calling from new

york. caller: good morning. thank you for taking my call. i'm calling because my family is impacted. my oldest son is dealing with addiction. it has impacted the whole family. i have lived in fear -- he has overdosed a few times, he survived them, and i'm living in fear that any time that i'm going to lose him. early on, he was arrested at 11 and searched inappropriately. psychologically, i feel i didn't

get the help for him, leading to him trying to escape. i failed as a parent. i must admit that, too. host: do you think this legislation will help at all? caller: at least people would be able to have an antidote. and be able to survive. i would like to see everybody have a chance at life, to live life the healthiest possible way and get the help they need. host: the senate and house have to put together their separate bills into one. do you know who will be on the conference committee? guest: we don't have names yet. that will happen after the senate approves the bill on monday. senator rob portman has been a leader on this. senator lamar alexander helped

him negotiate behind the scenes. on the democratic side, you've seen people like joe manchin from virginia that west virginia. -- from west virginia. host: what's been the reaction from the white house? guest: they declared it a public health crisis last year. while the senate was figuring out when they were going to find time to vote, president trump tweeted about the issue of fentanyl coming across the border. some people think that may have lit a fire, the president bringing attention to it. host: do we see this coming up in midterm election campaigns? is it a topic for anyone right now? guest: health care in general is the biggest issue on the

campaign right now. you hear democrats talking about it all the time. they fold opioids into that, particularly around issues like medicaid expansion and making sure everyone has access to affordable health care because treatment is a huge part of overcoming addiction. host: shone calling from -- john calling for massachusetts. caller: my comment is, you know, all these programs -- what needs to be done, go to the root cause of the problem, why people take drugs in the first place. poverty, probably lots of other things, too. there is no simple answers. you can't legislate reality.

that morality. -- you can't legislate morality. these programs going on aren't doing anything, spending more money on law-enforcement and all that. host: are these programs doing any good? guest: he makes a great point. a lot of public health advocates say we are not dealing with the root of the problem, the social determinants of health. education and jobs and access to health care and purpose in life. without those things, that's when you see instances of mental health worsening, substance abuse, addiction. some programs in this bill will look at trauma in children to see if you can heed this off before these kids become

addicted. host: what's the timeline? how long will it take the house to come up with something they consent to the president? best can send to the president -- they can send to the president? guest: there's not enough days left on the calendar. there's a sense of urgency to get it done before the end of the year. maybe they will try to loop that in with keeping the government from shutting down. host: mike calling in from connecticut. caller: i'm a retired police captain. i'm 73 years old. i saw when i was 65 i fell when i was 65 result that's when i

was 65 years old. the only way i could function was to be on opioids. a very mild one. one or two pills a day. they can't get it. by doctor is afraid of the bureaucrats in washington. i'm suffering. i take advil, which my doctor kidney. the only way i could move around was to take advil, which my doctor told me is no good for my kidney. the only way i could move around was to take the advil. he's petrified. there's a lot of people in my situation. you have people taking fentanyl to commit suicide because they are in chronic pain. yet, we are all lumped into the same drug test like i'm a junkie. i'm a 73-year-old retired police captain who cannot function at all without taking pain

medication. is anything can be done for anybody like me -- guest: this is a tricky balance that the fda is trying to figure out. there's blister packs where you would allow doctors to prescribe opioids in limited doses. we would rather go to the pharmacy and get a month's supply.

there's lots of people that doctor shop. they go across state lines and try to get opioids from various doctors. there has to be a crackdown on that. i'm not sure that lawmakers fully get that. host: carl calling from crownsville, maryland. go ahead. caller: good morning. since the pharmaceutical companies are the ones that produced, promoted and profited from the sales of the opioids, why aren't they taking financial responsibility for fixing the problem? guest: the pharmaceutical response to the public as they want to be involved. behind the scenes, we hear from public health advocates that they were pretty forthright in stopping lawmakers from putting in anything that was going to

limit their profits or hurt their ability to manufacture these opioids. host: part of the bill, part of the senate bill includes the u.s. postal service stepping up on the importation of illegal opioids from outside the u.s. talk to us about what that is about. guest: that's in senator rob portman's bill. suites and a huge influx in fentanyl coming into the country. we have seen a huge influx of fentanyl coming into the country.

people are using it to lace all kinds of drugs. some people are taking fentanyl not even knowing they are taking fentanyl and it is fatal. we have seen deaths skyrocket from fentanyl use. this would give the u.s. postal service authority to inspect the packages to stop the inflow. host: scott calling from new york. go ahead. caller: good morning. this problem was caused by the pharmaceutical companies years ago. in the 1990's, i was living in tennessee, they came out with oxycontin and told us it was nonaddictive. somebody who has experimented with drugs all their life -- once you take them for a while, you get accustomed to them, they make you feel high and good. in 2002, i didn't touch any opioids -- they put my tolerance back up. i found out what the addiction

is like. five months ago, i took an it five months ago, i took an it -- eight minute dirt nap. i took this -- narcan, have it on hand if anybody od's. with fentanyl, i got hit three times with narcan and i barely came back. the lady at the hospital said everybody thought you were dead. is very potent and you don't need to shoot it up. you can snort it.

about to do something that. the best thing to do, in my 56 years of life, we need to educate the kids. when i was a kid, a heroin addict was someone lying in the streets like a wino. these kids today look at this heroin like it's fun and games, a badge of honor if you died and came back. no, it's not. with fire you're going to get burnt. host: is there more money for prevention and saving people in this bill? guest: there's expansion for the antidotes he was talking about. making sure first responders and law enforcement have this injection they can give people that have overdosed. it is highly effective. making sure they are trained to do so.

there's not enough medication assisted treatment, something like methadone, where you are giving people a small amount to help them get over withdrawal. they are shown to be the most effective in helping people get over their addictions. there discussion over funding? >> there's not that much funding, to be honest. maybe a couple billion dollars over several years. compared to what public health advocates say we need, tens of billions of dollars over the next several years to address this, i don't expect funding to be a major sticking point. host: elizabeth calling from texas. go ahead. caller: good morning. i'm calling to say how this

crackdown on opiates has affected my family negatively. i suffer severe arthritis from back surgery. i have contemplated suicide so many times because i live in so much pain on a daily basis that i want to scream. my sister just had open heart surgery and valve replacement and they won't even give her pain meds for that. my mother is severely arthritic and had major surgeries and they are not giving her pain meds. we are suffering hour-by-hour and this is not our choice. yet, we cannot get the pain medication we need because people are out there abusing this and they are getting all the attention. oh, my goodness, we need to worry about saving your lives.

our quality of life has been so affected that it is affecting our daily health. i also suffer from stage four kidney disease. all i'm getting is muscle relaxers and pain patches. i can barely move and ice cream -- and i scream in pain all night long. host: how do we walk the line between keeping it from people who are abusing it and people who need it? guest: one of the things the senate bill does, it is asking the nih to research and develop nonaddictive pain medications. things that would make her

family feel better with the amount of chronic pain -- until then, we do have this really tricky balance between making sure that there was a new survey out, 11.4 million opioid misuses last year. that's a lot of people. host: are they moving nonaddictive painkillers on fast track with this legislation? guest: they are thinking about it. it is in there. the way i understand it, it's asking the fda to approve these things quicker. it takes a long time to get a drug approved through the fda. this would prioritize these nonaddictive pain pills. host: tj calling from california. go ahead, tj. caller: good morning.

the lady who just called, i feel her pain, i completely understand it. the police officer they called -- it's absolutely true. back surgeries, i've been through it all, 15-17 surgeries, so many, i can't even count. you can't sleep, you are in pain. you do that for a couple of days. the government, all these statistics, they are wrong. treatment centers, they are fake. they are money grabs. that all it is. education is the only way. people need to be educated on what they are taking, what it is they are taking and truthfully, what can happen when you take these things. host: any money for education in this bill?

guest: there's money for public awareness campaigns and outreach. money for schools to begin education programs around opioid use. public health advocates will say while prevention is important, we are so far along in this process, we missed the boat on that. we should have been doing that 20 years ago. now, we need to figure out a way to help those addicted who are dying every year, to get in the treatment and recovery they need. host: that calling from mississippi. zach calling for mississippi. caller: i want to give you a small example of how this is the fruit from the poison tree.

when john made marijuana illegal -- i have a history of pancreatitis. the last time i had it was three years ago. my aunt told me -- i was on my dying bed. i hadn't eaten in 13 days. she advised me to smoke some marijuana. one puff of marijuana -- less than two seconds, i was on my feet, trying to eat everything in the house. it's all because of people like jeff sessions and his association with tobacco and big pharmaceutical companies that want to push these man-made drugs on people instead of natural herbs that man has been messing with since the beginning of time. host: what can we expect to happen on monday? guest: on monday, you will see the senate vote on a sweeping opioid package that deals with prevention, recovery and

treatment with proposals from 70 different proposals from democrats and republicans and it will pass overwhelmingly. host: thank you for joining us. washington journal live at 7:00 eastern sunday morning. and bob woodward will be on journal 7:00 a.m. eastern, fear, trump in the ken starr , also, will join us on tuesday at 8:30 a.m. eastern. he'll discuss his book

m water of the en contempt investigation. >> tonight, former vice will speak e biden at the human rights campaign dinner. you can watch live coverage of 7:00 p.m. eastern c-span.ere on >> the white house did not release a weekly address by president trump this week. the democratic address is by vermont senator patrick leahy. there ains why he thinks is a lack of transparency in the supreme court confirmation of judge brett kavanaugh. the american people just witnessed an unprecedented week for preme court hearings president trump's nominee, judge brett kavanaugh. in the senate for 44 years. 19 's a time that includes nominations to the supreme co