Pennsylvania would get around $46 million to combat its opioid and heroin epidemic under a $1.1 billion treatment funding proposal in President Barack Obama's 2017 budget, federal officials announced today in a press release and conference call.

Democratic members of the U.S. House and Senate, though, were not predicting easy passage. Congress is mired in debate over the membership of a committee on the budget, they said.

“While we're quibbling about who is going to be on the committee of conference, people are dying,” said Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H.

“Where the rubber meets the road is to fund these bills, and we have come up against a stone wall,” said Rep. Annie Kuster, D-N.H.

The $1.1 billion in new funding would go to states based on their fatal drug overdoses and the estimated “treatment gap.” The latter is a measure of the number of people who need opioid rehabilitation, but can't get it due to its scarcity or cost. Pennsylvania has the nation’s 8th highest drug poisoning death rate, according to the background information provided by the White House.

Michael Botticelli, director of National Drug Control Policy, cited “a shortage of treatment providers and facilities across the country, particularly in rural areas,” that is contributing to 78 deaths a day due to heroin, fentanyl and opioid medications.

The money would go to prevention, treatment and recovery, with around $920 million of the total slated for expanding access to medicine-assisted treatment often involving the anti-withdrawal drug buprenorphine, and to subsidizing treatment and recovery services.

“This is a national health crisis,” said Rhode Island Gov. Gina Raimondo. “We're doing what we can and all that we can on the state level, but we need federal support.”

Ms. Shaheen said there’s “no excuse” for funding emergency efforts to stop Ebola or swine flu while “ignoring an opioid crisis that’s killing tens of thousands of people across this country.”

Her earlier effort to get $600 million in emergency funding to help states to address the opioid and heroin problem failed in May.

Ms. Kuster related the story of a family she has come to know. The son was recovering from addiction. “A physician prescribed him with a cough medication that, unbenownst to the family, contained codeine and opiates.” That caused a relapse. “He called a dealer and died of an overdose of what turned out to be 100 percent fentanyl.”

Read OVERDOSED: How doctors wrote the script for an epidemic. Email the team at overdosed@post-gazette.com, and read the OVERDOSED blog for more on the Post-Gazette’s investigation, readers’ stories, and the latest news about the drug epidemic.

First Published: June 14, 2016, 8:55 p.m.