On May 9 and May 17, 2018, the House Committee on Energy and Commerce ordered 59 bills to be reported related to the nation’s response to the opioid epidemic. Because of the large number of related bills ordered reported by the Committee, CBO is publishing a single comprehensive document that includes estimates for each piece of legislation.
H.R. 3528, the Every Prescription Conveyed Securely Act, would require prescriptions for controlled substances covered under Medicare Part D to be transmitted electronically, starting on January 1, 2021. Based on CBO’s analysis of prescription drug spending, spending for controlled substances is a small share of total drug spending. CBO also assumes a small share of those prescriptions would not be filled because they are not converted to an electronic format. Therefore, CBO expects that enacting H.R. 3528 would reduce the number of prescriptions filled and estimates that Medicare spending would be reduced by $250 million over the 2019-2028 period.
