Gov. Charlie Baker said Tuesday that it's his sense House and Senate negotiators trying to reach compromise on opioid abuse prevention legislation will strike a deal "fairly shortly" and avoid the bill getting caught in the web of late-session dealmaking. 
Despite the fact that he said he's "anxious" to see a bill reach his desk, the governor refused to criticize the pace of progress in the Democrat-controlled legislation and even went out of his way to note funding bills and smaller opioid-related law changes that have reached his desk. 
"I'd like to see it in the next couple of weeks. There's been talk about trying to get it done before the budget becomes kind of the major part of the activity around here," Baker told reporters Tuesday. 
The bills currently under negotiation would take steps to reduce the number of painkillers that can be prescribed at any one time. Continuing to site a statistic that four people die every day in Massachusetts from opioid-related overdoses, Baker would not put a timetable on when his patience might run out. "I get the fact that this is complicated and we proposed some pretty disruptive stuff, but I'm more optimistic about this. It's my sense about this that we're likely to see something fairly shortly, and unless I get told otherwise, I'm going to presume that's going to be the case." 
– Matt Murphy/State House News Service