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Article snippet: Bipartisan congressional leaders in both chambers on Tuesday night unveiled a massive bill aimed at fighting the epidemic of opioid abuse in the United States, capping months of work. Fighting the crisis has been an area of bipartisan cooperation this year amid many fierce partisan battles raging with more publicity. The 660-page bill takes a wide variety of actions aimed at fighting the crisis. “Once signed into law, this legislation sends help to our communities fighting on the front lines of the crisis and to the millions of families affected by opioid use disorders,” the chairmen and ranking members in both chambers who worked on the measure said in a joint statement after unveiling the text late Tuesday night. The measure is largely seen as a step in the right direction, though some have called for more funding in a sustained manner to fight the crisis. Sen. MORE (D-Mass.), for example, has a bill to provide $100 billion to fight the crisis over 10 years, which says is more in line with what is necessary to fight the epidemic. Overdoses involving opioids killed more than 42,000 people in 2016, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Aside from opioid policy, drug companies also failed in an intense lobbying push to attach a provision to the bill easing their costs in Medicare. The change would have rolled back a provision from February’s budget deal that raised drugmakers costs in Medicare’s coverage gap, known as the donut hole. D... Link to the full article to read more