By Jon Collins, Minnesota Public Radio News

Gov. Mark Dayton on Wednesday laid out a broad plan to tackle Minnesota’s opioid crisis, including a significant increase in funding for prevention and treatment, and a penny-a-pill fee paid by drug companies to help pay for it.

The centerpiece of the proposal is the “stewardship fee” required of opioid manufacturers that would be used to fund opioid treatment and recovery programs to curb abuse. Fully implemented, it would be expected to raise about $20 million a year.

The idea had bipartisan support on Wednesday.

“Something needs to be done. People are dying,” said state Rep. Dave Baker, R-Willmar. While Republicans may debate whether to call it a fee or a tax, Baker said he would tell the GOP caucus that “for this issue today, this is the best option for us to help fix this problem.”

The country has been slow to come together on this issue of opioids, he said, because it came from the trusted medical community.

Dayton and other politicians Wednesday also called out the pharmaceutical industry for being part of the problem. With the back of the room packed with lobbyists, Dayton called out the industry for opposing the penny-a-pill measure last year.

State Sen. Chris Eaton, DFL-Brooklyn Center, described the penny-a-pill fee plan as “reparations. Many of the parents I talk to are angry” that drug companies knew how addictive opioid painkillers are and still pushed, she said. Eaton’s daughter, Ariel Eaton-Willson, died of a heroin overdose in 2007.

Eaton said drug companies had data that opioids were addictive but still pushed on doctors. She said she’s angry and that state taxpayers shouldn’t be on hook for cost created by drug companies.

The pharmaceutical industry created the problem and now need to step up and be a partner on solutions, said state Rep. Debra Hilstrom, DFL- Brooklyn Center.

“Law enforcement is important, but we can’t arrest our way out of this,” Eaton said, adding that law enforcement needs to get drugs off the street but also carry the opioid antidote naloxone to try and save people who overdose.

Nick McGee, a spokesperson for the industry group, Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, said in an emailed statement that the penny-a-pill bill ignores factors other than prescription painkillers that led to the opioid epidemic. He said the fee would “unfairly penalize and ostracize vulnerable patients” who rely on the medication.

Dayton said funding for the anti-opioid proposals would be covered by state funds in fiscal year 2019 and then covered by penny-a-pill revenue.

State officials noted opioid overdose deaths rose 66 percent between 2010 and 2016. In 2016, there were 194 prescription opioid overdose deaths. Heroin-involved overdose death and synthetic opioids deaths also have seen a significant increase.