The following article by Emily Gee and Richard G. Frank was posted on the Center for American Progress website June 20, 2017:
The concerns of some Senate Republicans about making the opioid epidemic worse have spilled out of their secretive negotiations for repeal of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), in the form of a fund to combat opioid addiction. A $45 billion fund in the Senate bill would reportedly be aimed at helping people with dependence on prescription opioids and illicit forms of the drug, but it would provide scant resources to address the epidemic. The fund also would not be able to undo the true costs of the repeal bill, would result in millions of Americans losing health insurance coverage, and could cause those still insured to lose access to substance use disorder treatment.
There were 2.66 million people in the United States with an opioid use disorder (OUD) as of 2015. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports that 33,091 people died from an opioid overdose in 2015. West Virginia had the highest opioid overdose death rate; about 36 out of every 100,000 people in the state died from an opioid overdose that year. Continue reading “Senate’s Opioid Fund Cannot Substitute for Health Coverage”
