Nurturing and Supporting Healthy Babies Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. CARTER of Georgia. I thank the gentleman from Kentucky for yielding and for his work on this most important subject, as well as the gentleman from West Virginia.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H.R. 4978, the NAS Healthy Babies Act because newborn infants deserve every opportunity to live a happy and healthy life.

H.R. 4978 requires the Government Accountability Office to compile a report on the amount of babies born each year with NAS, Medicaid insurance coverage for families that have an NAS baby, and Federal obstacles for children who seek treatments for NAS. With this new information, we can increase our understanding of NAS and our ability to provide care for babies born with NAS. This new understanding is vital, considering the number of newborns with NAS has increased with the rise in the number of Americans addicted to opioids.

As a lifelong pharmacist, I believe we should take every step possible to fight the addiction crisis in America, and the protection of our children should be our top priority. I encourage all of my colleagues to support this measure.

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