Curbelo Urges Trump Administration to Prioritize Combatting the Opioid Crisis, Inter-Agency Cooperation on Welfare-to-Work

Press Release

During a Committee hearing today, Representative Carlos Curbelo (FL-26), South Florida's only Member on the House Ways and Means Committee, urged Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar to prioritize combatting the opioid crisis and inter-agency cooperation on programs that empower individuals receiving government assistance to move into the workforce.

Curbelo also highlighted the bipartisan "Accelerating Individuals into the Workforce Act" he introduced with Representative Danny Davis (IL-7). The legislation would help connect Americans looking for work with employers looking to fill job openings, including through apprenticeships and other forms of on-the-job training. It passed the House of Representatives last year with overwhelming bipartisan support.
A full transcript of Curbelo's exchange with Secretary Azar is available below.

Representative Carlos Curbelo: "Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you very much, Mr. Secretary for your testimony and for all your time with us this morning.

"The opioid crisis, which we have already heard discussed so much this morning on both sides of the aisle because I think everyone is deeply concerned about it, certainly has hit South Florida. The budget requests authority to work with the Drug Enforcement Administration to revoke a provider's certificate, which allows a provider to prescribe controlled substances. How does the process work now and how would this authority help the Secretary -- your office -- combat the opioid epidemic?"

Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar: "So if we were given this authority, this would enable us, whenever we ban a provider within the Medicare System, to immediately transfer that information over to the DEA so that they could also ban them from the Controlled Substances Prescribing System, where now there are barriers to basically, even communication sometimes on that. This would make it automatic that it could go over to the DEA and we can be in-sync around banning providers, so that when we identify a pill writer, a pill mill, it goes right over and their license is cut off on that side also."

Curbelo: "So you think this would be an important tool to help you make a difference when it comes to this crisis?"

Azar: "Yes, we do."

Curbelo: "I want to take you over to the other side of the house -- the Human Services -- and I have been fortunate to work on this Committee with Dr. Davis, Congressman Davis on legislation called "Accelerating Individuals into the Workforce Act,' and essentially what we are trying to do is encourage people to move from many of the government assistance programs we have into the workforce, become empowered, become independent, and really achieve their own success -- whatever that happens to be.

"What is your vision for your collaboration with the Department of Labor, for example, on these programs, with how you can help us in our goals -- I think bipartisan in nature for the most part -- to help individuals move into the workforce and become better citizens?"

Azar: "I am glad you asked that question. So, one of the proposals we have in our budget is called welfare to work, which within our own programs within the Administration for Children and Families, it would enable us to create a holistic set of programs around the individual. You know we have attacked different problems that individuals in need would have, this would let us build aide for them and transition to work around the individual. And my vision would be once we can prove that that works well, I want to work with Labor and HUD, and all the other participants in Human Services to see if we can help build this type of holistic approach to individuals rather than our old, siloed ways of getting at these challenges. And then we are also working in the budget to sure up our Temporary Assistance for Needy Families programs, to genuinely have accountability for the states to get people trained and out there working."

Curbelo: "Well I appreciate that and my goal is not to cut any of these programs it is to reform them son there more effective and help people mor

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