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. 5809, the Postoperative Opioid Prevention Act of 2018, would create an additional payment under Medicare for nonopioid analgesics. Under current law, certain new drugs and devices may receive an additional payment—separate from the bundled payment for a surgical procedure—in outpatient hospital departments and ambulatory surgical centers. The bill would allow nonopioid analgesics to qualify for a five-year period of additional payments. Based on its assessment of current spending for analgesics and on the probability of new nonopioid analgesics coming to market, CBO estimates that H.R. 5809 would increase direct spending by about $180 million over the 2019-2028 period.
