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. 5582, the Abuse Deterrent Access Act of 2018, would require the Secretary of Health and Human Services to report to the Congress on existing barriers to access to "abuse-deterrent opioid formulations" by Medicare Part C and D beneficiaries. Such formulations make the drugs more difficult to dissolve for injection, for example, and thus can impede their abuse. Assuming the availability of appropriated funds and based on historical spending patterns for similar activities, CBO estimates that implementing the legislation would cost less than $500,000 over the 2019-2023 period.