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 The bill, which will now move to the Senate floor, was prompted by a
Reuters investigation last year.
Reuters found 110 cases of children who were exposed to opioids
while in the womb and who later died preventable deaths at home. No
more than nine states comply with a 2003 law that calls on hospitals
to alert social workers whenever a baby is born dependent on drugs,
Reuters found.
“This is a major bipartisan agreement that will seek to fill the
gaps in this program that Reuters first exposed in their
groundbreaking investigation,” said Senator Bob Casey, a
Pennsylvania Democrat and a co-author of the bill. “These are our
most vulnerable children and we have an abiding obligation to ensure
they’re cared for.”
The proposal approved by the Senate Health, Education, Labor and
Pensions Committee on Wednesday calls for better “plans of safe
care” to help drug-dependent mothers raise newborns as the babies
suffer through opioid withdrawal.
If it becomes law, the measure would also 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. Thousands
of newborns do not receive such plans, Reuters found.
The proposal, which does not include additional funds, is part of a
compromise struck between Casey and committee chairman Senator Lamar
Alexander, a Tennessee Republican.
The bill also requires the Health and Human Services Department to
better monitor state policies intended to protect drug-dependent
newborns.
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On Tuesday, also in response to the Reuters series, HHS Secretary
Sylvia Burwell said her agency had revamped its policies for
protecting thousands of babies and planned to be “more pro-active.”
Burwell made her remarks in testimony before a U.S. House committee
in which she said HHS was reviewing unspecified problems in South
Carolina.
South Carolina officials this week confirmed they had been ordered
by HHS on March 4 to improve their policies on drug-exposed
newborns, but they did not provide details.
(Reporting by John Shiffman in Washington, Duff Wilson in New York;
Editing by Ronnie Greene, Toni Reinhold)
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