In the News

Although U.S. Rep. Richard Neal, offered that the Trump administration's plan to combat opioid abuse includes some proposals lawmakers can generally agree on, the Springfield Democrat said Tuesday that he'd like to see the White House keep its focus on addiction treatment and prevention efforts.

Neal, the top Democrat on the House Ways and Means Committee, told The Republican that while he hasn't seen the specifics of President Donald Trump's newly unveiled plan, he hopes the administration works with lawmakers on both sides of the aisle to immediately address the issue and lower the number of overdose-related deaths.

The congressman called on the administration to keep the federal government's response focused on expanding treatment and prevention efforts, instead of enacting stricter criminal penalties, like capital punishment for some drug dealers -- a proposal which Trump discussed at length during his plan's Monday rollout. 

Neal further contended that the White House should look at expanding services available through Medicaid and stabilizing insurance markets through negotiations on Affordable Care Act cost-sharing subsidies.

Noting that Trump has indicted a willingness to re-examine the ACA subsidies, payments to insurers which the president abruptly halted in October, the Springfield Democrat said Congress could immediately move to stabilize insurance markets in "omnibus" spending legislation currently before lawmakers. 

"That would go a long way, I think, toward providing a predictable number of beds and increase treatment facilities for people who want to get clean," he said in an interview, arguing that a lack of funding has resulted in few available treatment beds across the U.S.

"If we could stabilize some of these insurance markets that would mean that you'd have more Medicaid opportunities for increased beds," the congressman said.

Neal added that while the White House has yet to release concrete details and proposals surrounding its opioid policy, he hopes to hear more about its plan to expand services covered by Medicaid.

"I was hoping that we'd had some conversation about expanding Medicaid, for example. That's one of the surest ways to treat substance abuse," he said when asked about Trump's Monday announcement in New Hampshire. "I think that all of a sudden the conversation began to turn more to the death penalty than to the expansion of Medicaid to treat some of these opioid addictions."

Trump, in unveiling his administration's wide-ranging plan to combat opioid addiction at Manchester Community College, said he will call on Congress to "change the restrictive 1970s-era law that prevents Medicaid from paying for care at certain treatment facilities with more than 16 beds."

He added that his administration will grant states waivers to "help people who need treatment now."

Neal, however, said lawmakers "haven't seen the whole plan -- a structured one -- yet" when it comes to Medicaid changes.

"There really hasn't been anything," he said. "We began to talk about this a year ago, and, you know, the statistics indicate that you have now almost 116 people die every day in America (from opioids) ... We did agree, in a bipartisan manner, that we would make this a priority, and I think on our side we're still anxious to participate."