Substance Use Disorder Workforce Loan Repayment Act of 2018

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H.R. 5102, the Substance Use Disorder Workforce Loan Repayment Act.

As families at home know too well, our country is in the midst of a devastating public health crisis. The opioid epidemic claims more than 115 lives every day, and in 2016 alone, more than 42,000 people lost their lives to opioid-related drug overdoses, and more than 64,000 died from drug overdoses overall. Every one of those lives lost left heartbroken families, friends, and communities.

Part of addressing this epidemic is making sure that everyone who is looking for help can access effective treatment and ongoing management of this chronic condition. To date, however, we have failed in this endeavor. The Surgeon General's 2016 report on addiction estimates that only 10 percent of Americans living with substance use disorder receive any treatment.

There are a range of barriers to accessing treatment, but one of the most significant is a shortage in the workforce needed to provide it. Between the rising cost of education, low salaries, and a high burnout rate from the stressful and emotional work, it is a struggle to attract new people to the treatment field and keep those who work in it long term.

In my district, I have heard time and again from families and providers that there simply aren't enough treatment specialists available to help the growing number of people who desperately need treatment. I have heard from families who have tried to get their loved ones into treatment and lost them to an overdose before they were able to get them the help they needed.

No one should have to live with that heartbreak. That is why I authored this legislation with my esteemed colleague from Kentucky, Chairman Hal Rogers. This bill will help recruit and retain more treatment experts by offering up to $250,000 in student loan repayment for participants who agree to work in the treatment field for up to 6 years.

The program will cover professionals who represent the whole spectrum of treatment, from physicians to nurses, to social workers, to recovery coaches, promoting the kind of wraparound treatment approach that we know gives patients the best chance for success.

By providing a portion of loan repayment for each year of service, the program encourages treatment professionals to stay in the field longer.

Further, this legislation is designed to send help where it is needed the most. Participants in the program must work in a county or municipality with either a shortage of mental health professionals or an above-average rate of overdose deaths. Whether you live in an urban or rural area, from Massachusetts to Kentucky, more need will mean more available treatment.

Mr. Speaker, I thank Chairman Rogers for his partnership on this important legislation and the other original cosponsors, as well as the Energy and Commerce Committee and their staff for their work throughout this process.

We need to make significant long-term investments in the professionals who make recovery possible. People's lives depend on it. Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote in favor of this legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I thank Congressman Pallone for yielding.

I rise in support of H.R. 5102, the Substance Use Disorder Workforce Loan Repayment Act of 2018.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the authors of the bill, my colleagues Katherine Clark and Hal Rogers, for putting this together. It is a very carefully crafted bill to address the problem which it discovered, really, which is there is this serious shortage of substance use disorder professionals across the country.

We are experiencing shortages in a lot of areas of the healthcare workforce, that is true, but if we are going to address the opioid crisis that we face, this epidemic across the country, we have to bring particular attention to the workforce shortages with respect to substance use disorder professionals.

According to SAMHSA, which is the agency which deals with these issues, in 2012, the turnover rates in the addiction services workforce ranged from 18.5 to over 50 percent. So there is a huge turnover there that has to be addressed.

In a recent survey, nearly half of clinical directors in agencies that specialize in substance use disorder treatment acknowledged that they have real difficulty filling these open positions.

In my district, I have heard from many of the community health centers--Baltimore Medical System, Health Care for the Homeless, and others--that said they can't hire enough of these folks and they can't keep enough of these folks to address the opioid crisis.

We need this workforce to address the millions of people who require this important treatment, and this bill does that. It is a very, very important step forward. It will create this loan repayment program for professionals who are in this area of substance use disorder treatment. They can receive up to $250,000 if they agree to work as a treatment professional in this area and in a geographical area of high need.

Again, carefully crafted, this treatment can take place in a number of different facilities, community health centers, hospitals, recovery programs, correctional facilities, et cetera.

So the idea was to figure out where those shortages are and direct the bill's support to those areas: a broad range of direct care providers, physicians, registered nurses, social workers, and other behavioral health providers.

This is going to help address the problem of recruitment, attracting new people to the field, as well as help with retention of those people. It is a very, very important bill.

Mr. Speaker, I was proud to join my colleagues, Katherine Clark, Hal Rogers on our committee, Brett Guthrie, and others, in supporting this. I hope all of my colleagues here today will support this important bill.

Mr. Speaker, I thank Chairman Walden for those words.

This is a fight that is critical to the country, and I want to thank the chairman of the committee, Mr. Walden, and Mr. Pallone and the other members of the Energy and Commerce Committee for reporting out for consideration today this multipronged assault on this cruel epidemic that is ravaging the country. The committee has responded, and I thank Chairman Walden for all of these bills that are here with us today, especially the bill that we are debating now, and that is the Substance Use Disorder Workforce Loan Repayment Act.

We have invested billions of dollars in treatment and recovery services. As the gentlewoman from Massachusetts has just said, only 10 percent of Americans with a disorder actually receive treatment; 90 percent go without treatment.

That situation is even more dire in small communities. Far too often, when our rural constituents recognize their addiction, they are not able to find treatment or recovery services anywhere close to home or at all.

Those who do enter the treatment profession often don't stay long due to the stress of the job. They don't work in areas most in need of their services, or they have difficulty repaying these sizeable student loans. If we want to maximize our downpayment for the future, these professionals are the key.

H.R. 5102 creates a substantial student loan repayment benefit for a

broad spectrum of medical professionals who enter this noble vocation. It also ensures that these individuals serve in areas most in need of their services for the long haul, offering periodic payments over 6 years.

With these incentives in place, more of our constituents suffering from addiction will receive the quality treatment they so desperately need.

Mr. Speaker, I thank Ms. Clark for her genuine concern about the problem and her partnership, and also Dr. Burgess and his team for their guidance on this bill.

Mr. Speaker, I again thank Chairman Walden for bringing this bill forward and all of the others that have been reported out today, and I thank Mr. Pallone and the rest of the committee for the great work that they are doing in a bipartisan fashion.

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 5102) to amend the Public Health Service Act to authorize a loan repayment program for substance use disorder treatment employees, and for other purposes.

I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and insert extraneous materials into the Record on the bill.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to express my strong support for H.R. 5102. This is the Substance Use Disorder Workforce Loan Repayment Act. It is legislation that would create a loan repayment program for substance use disorder treatment providers.

Serious workforce shortages exist for all health professions across the United States. We know that. But a delay in addiction treatment for a patient with substance use disorder can be a life-or-death situation.

By offering student loan repayment for those who agree to work as a substance use disorder treatment professional in an underserved area, this bill encourages more people to enter the substance use disorder treatment field and get critical services to areas that are seriously in dire need of treatment.

I would like to thank my colleagues, Representatives Katherine Clark, Hal Rogers, John Sarbanes, and Brett Guthrie, for leading this important initiative. It is brought to you from your Energy and Commerce Committee with a unanimous vote.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Before I recognize my colleague from Kentucky, I just want to say, Mr. Rogers has spent many, many years leading nationally not only here in the Congress, but nationally and in Kentucky on this issue of addiction and the scourge of opioids as they have flooded into our area. His leadership has been very, very valuable in this endeavor.

Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. Rogers).

Mr. Speaker, I would do the same, urge passage of the bill, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of H.R. 5102, the ``Substance Use Disorder Workforce Loan Repayment Act of 2018.''

H.R. 5102 would establish a loan repayment program for mental health professionals practicing in areas with few mental health providers or with high death rates from overdose.

Mr. Speaker, this bill will amend the Public Health Service Act to create a loan repayment program for individuals who complete a period of service in a substance use disorder treatment job in a mental health professional shortage area and counties where the drug overdose death rate is higher than the national average.

This bill authorizes $25 million per year over fiscal years 2019- 2028.

H.R. 5102 will strengthen America's substance abuse treatment workforce and provide for greater access to care for patients who need it the most.

Mr. Speaker, the current trends of substance abuse in the U.S. are startling.

A Columbia University study found that over 40 million Americans age 12 and over meet the clinical criteria for drug addiction and abuse.

As substance abuse rates and death from overdose rates increase, studies project a shortage of 85,000 physicians in 2020--the impact of which will be the most devastating in rural communities.

In my home state of Texas, 10.1 people die per 100,000 in the population from drug overdoses.

In 2016, in Houston there were 364 drug overdose related deaths reported.

H.R. 5102 addresses these critical issues by providing an additional path for health care providers to practice in rural and underserved communities, ultimately giving greater access to care for those suffering from substance use disorder.

This piece of legislation will strengthen rural health care systems and will improve access to care for patients in these rural communities.

Mr. Speaker, the ``Substance Use Disorder Workforce Loan Repayment Act of 2018'' will help build a well-equipped workforce to combat the current rise in substance use disorders.