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 The bipartisan measure would require federal and state governments
to do a better job of monitoring the health and safety of babies
born drug-dependent. Last week – and also in response to the Reuters
investigation – a similar bill moved to the Senate floor and the
U.S. Health and Human Services Department pledged reforms.
“We must do everything we can to safeguard the most vulnerable among
us,” Representative Lou Barletta, a Pennsylvania Republican, said in
a statement on Wednesday. Barletta is the bill's prime sponsor.
Reuters found that 110 U.S. children who were exposed to opioids
while in the womb later died preventable deaths at home – and that
thousands more each year do not receive social supports required by
a 2003 law. The news agency also found that no more than nine states
comply with this law, which calls on hospitals to alert social
workers whenever a baby is born dependent on drugs.
 The House bill would require states to report each year the number
of infants identified as born drug-dependent, and the number for
whom plans of safe care are developed. The bill also calls for the
distribution of “best practices” to social workers developing plans
of safe care for the newborns and their caretakers.
“This legislation puts families at the center of care and ensures
that babies and mothers affected by substance use disorders get the
help they need,” the lead Democratic sponsor, Katherine Clark of
Massachusetts, said in a statement.
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The bill follows a hearing last week in which Representative John
Kline, chairman of the House Education and the Workforce Committee
and a cosponsor of the bill, quizzed a senior Obama administration
official on the federal government’s enforcement of the 2003 law and
the Reuters series.
Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Burwell told Kline that
her agency has revamped its policies and planned to be "more
proactive" with states. Thus far, she said, HHS has directed South
Carolina to resolve unspecified problems. All other states have been
directed to update HHS by June on their social service efforts to
help drug-dependent babies and their parents.
(Editing by Matthew Lewis)
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