--- title: Elizabeth Warren Unveils $100 Billion Plan on Opioid Crisis description: Sen. Elizabeth Warren will unveil a ten-year, $100 billion plan aimed at curbing the effects of extremely addictive opioids. canonical: https://time.com/5585418/elizabeth-warren-opioid-crisis-bill/ author: Abby Vesoulis article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2019-05-08T12:00:38.000Z article:modified_time: 2023-12-12T23:34:11.000Z article:section: Politics og:title: Elizabeth Warren Unveils $100 Billion Plan to Fight the Opioid Crisis og:description: She's releasing it ahead of campaign events in Ohio and West Virginia og:url: https://time.com/5585418/elizabeth-warren-opioid-crisis-bill/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltca4f63bc9233cfd7/6987823af887dc0a25e8a71b/elizabeth-warren.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 2560 og:image:height: 1440 og:image:alt: Elizabeth Warren og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Elizabeth Warren Unveils $100 Billion Plan to Fight the Opioid Crisis twitter:description: She's releasing it ahead of campaign events in Ohio and West Virginia twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltca4f63bc9233cfd7/6987823af887dc0a25e8a71b/elizabeth-warren.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Elizabeth Warren to Unveil $100 Billion Plan to Fight the Opioid Crisis > Sponsored content. 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It explains the politics, personalities and power dynamics behind the headlines, three times a week. #### Where can I get analysis of Washington politics by email? D.C. Brief is TIME's free Washington politics newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. It is written by a TIME senior correspondent who covers the capital full time. #### Who writes TIME's D.C. Brief? Philip Elliott, a senior correspondent at TIME, writes D.C. Brief. #### Is D.C. Brief free? Yes. D.C. Brief is free at time.com/newsletters. ## Video: The Opioid Diaries | Addiction: My Overdose [Watch (HLS stream): The Opioid Diaries | Addiction: My Overdose](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/zwbPx4S2.m3u8) (1:21)  _Published 2018-02-22. Chad Colwell talks about his near-fatal overdose and what led him to risk so much._  by [Abby Vesoulis](https://time.com/author/abby-vesoulis/)  ## Abby Vesoulis Updated: Dec 12, 2023 11:34 PM UTCPublished: May 8, 2019 12:00 PM UTC  Sen. Elizabeth Warren listens to Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen testify during a hearing on Feb. 24, 2015\. (Kevin Lamarque—Reuters) Sen. Elizabeth Warren listens to Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen testify during a hearing on Feb. 24, 2015\. (Kevin Lamarque—Reuters) Kevin Lamarque—Reuters  by [Abby Vesoulis](https://time.com/author/abby-vesoulis/)  ## Abby Vesoulis Updated: Dec 12, 2023 11:34 PM UTCPublished: May 8, 2019 12:00 PM UTC Sen. Elizabeth Warren will unveil a ten-year, $100 billion plan aimed at curbing the abuse of extremely addictive opioid drugs such as oxycodone, hydrocodone and fentanyl. The Massachusetts Democrat, who is seeking the party’s presidential nomination, will introduce a revamped and updated [Comprehensive Addiction Resources Emergency Act](https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/senate-bill/2700/titles), or CARE Act for short, on Wednesday, sources close to the campaign told TIME. The largest portion of the funds, $4 billion per year, would be divided between states, territories and tribal governments, with the areas seeing the highest concentration of overdoses receiving larger chunks of funding. Written in collaboration with Maryland Democrat and House Oversight Chair Rep. Elijah Cummings, the CARE Act would also allocate $2.7 billion per year to the hardest-hit cities and counties and an additional $1.7 billion per year for public health surveillance, research, and improved training for health care providers. In addition, $1.1 billion would be provided to public and nonprofit groups working to fight addiction on the frontlines in communities. “Families across this nation — in red states, blue states, and purple states, in big cities, suburbs, and rural areas — are struggling with the devastating consequences of this generational crisis that claims 192 lives every single day,” Cummings told TIME in a statement. Their plan also aims to spend $500 million per year to make naloxone, a nonaddictive drug often used to reverse the effects of opioids, more accessible to first responders, public health departments and the public. It’s being presented ahead of weekend campaign events in Ohio and West Virginia — two states that have been hit the hardest by opioid abuse and addiction. Ohio alone saw more than [4,000 opioid-related deaths](https://www.drugabuse.gov/opioid-summaries-by-state/ohio-opioid-summary) in 2017\. Respectively, West Virginia saw more than [800 related deaths,](https://www.drugabuse.gov/opioid-summaries-by-state/west-virginia-opioid-summary) at a rate of nearly 50 deaths per 100,000 people.  Photograph by James Nachtwey for TIME **Read More:** [_See Inside the Opioid Crisis_](http://time.com/james-nachtwey-opioid-addiction-america/) According to people familiar with the proposal, new additions to the bill will include a greater emphasis on some of the root causes of addiction, like mental health disorders, as well as a new grant program that aims to help workers maintain and gain employment while seeking substance abuse treatment. The updated proposal would also seek to streamline the grant proposal process and incentivize states to expand access to evidence-based treatment. The CARE Act would be funded by Warren’s previously proposed ultra millionaire tax on the richest 75,000 families in America. Her team estimates that the tax would raise $2.75 trillion over the next decade, which familiar sources say is enough to cover this plan as well as her student loan debt and universal childcare plans. Since Warren announced she was running for President in February, she’s put out a slew of policy plans, including one that would grant extremely low-income families [free childcare,](https://medium.com/@teamwarren/my-plan-for-universal-child-care-762535e6c20a) one that would erase the [student loan debt](https://medium.com/@teamwarren/im-calling-for-something-truly-transformational-universal-free-public-college-and-cancellation-of-a246cd0f910f?mod=article%5Finline) shouldered by millions of Americans and one that would reward hospitals that make [childbirth safer](https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/24/politics/elizabeth-warren-african-american-maternal-mortality-plan/index.html) for African-American women. **Read More:** [_A Quick Guide to the Big Ideas in the Democratic Primary_](http://time.com/5580311/2020-democratic-presidential-candidates-ideas/) It makes sense she’d use her proposed ultra millionaire tax to fund several of her policy ideas. In March, she [told TIME](http://time.com/5553679/elizabeth-warren-campaign-policy/) that “the rules of our economy are so rigged in favor of the rich and powerful that we can’t afford to just tinker around the edges.” Despite the opioid crisis contributing to an atypical [drop in life expectancy](https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2018/11/29/18117906/opioid-epidemic-drug-overdose-deaths-2017-life-expectancy) and [hundreds of thousands of deaths](https://www.cdc.gov/drugoverdose/epidemic/index.html) since 1999, the 2018 version of this bill didn’t get very far in Congress. It got only [81 cosponsors in the House](https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/115/hr5545/details) and [zero in the Senate. ](https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/115/s2700/details) But not spending money on the problem could also prove to be costly. President Donald Trump’s Council of Economic Advisers [estimated](https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/whitehouse.gov/files/images/The%20Underestimated%20Cost%20of%20the%20Opioid%20Crisis.pdf) that the opioid crisis cost the U.S. economy more than $500 billion in 2015 alone. ## Transcript [ BLANK_AUDIO ] Does it feel good to have your [ UNKNOWN ]? Yeah. For you to know, this could kill me, but I'm gonna go ahead and do it anyway because there's a chance I'm gonna get high. That's sick, you know what I mean? The opioid addiction started cuz I played football and I got injured, I got prescribed which as [ UNKNOWN ] said [ UNKNOWN ]. He's starting to really come round but- You start liking it. So I started having to buy most the street man and heroine to find. Heroine is cheaper. He's trying, come on. [ BLANK_AUDIO ] [ SOUND ] Okay. Come on. Keep breathing. I don't know what he was thinking. This is what he did last time. I'm passionate about my recovery, man. You know what I mean? I wanna succeed. [ BLANK_AUDIO ] I don't wanna fall back into the pit. You know what I'm saying? Not be able to climb out. I barely climbed out this time. [ BLANK_AUDIO ] ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/5585418/elizabeth-warren-opioid-crisis-bill/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/5585418/elizabeth-warren-opioid-crisis-bill/"},"headline":"Elizabeth Warren to Unveil $100 Billion Plan to Fight the Opioid Crisis","datePublished":"2019-05-08T12:00:38.000Z","dateModified":"2023-12-12T23:34:11.000Z","description":"Sen. 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