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In order to bribe Republican senators from the Medicaid expansion states hit hardest by the opioid epidemic, namely Shelley Moore Capito (WV) and Rob Portman (OH), Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has thrown $45 billion in treatment funds at them, $4.5 billion every year for the next decade. That's not going to cut it, say addiction experts, because they can't offset the drastic cuts to Medicaid in the proposal.
Medicaid currently pays for about 1.2 million adults to receive opioid addiction treatment, according to an analysis from Harvard and New York University researchers. Repealing the expansion, those researchers found, would rescind about $4.5 billion in annual funds that currently cover addiction treatment.
The solution, at least according to Portman and Capito, is to insert that money back into the system, albeit as a grant rather than within the Medicaid system. The number could still shrink, however, as Republicans spend this week hammering out many of the remaining provisions of their repeal plan. […]
Addiction experts fighting the epidemic, however, said the senators’ proposal overlooks the complicated spiral in health issues that can be brought on by addiction.
“Sure, yeah, you know, it sounds wonderful. Here’s billions of dollars to help combat this issue. But the issue is larger than that,” said Mark Drennan, the executive director of the West Virginia Behavioral Healthcare Providers Association.
Senate Republicans are still talking Trumpcare, and plan to bring it back after July 4 recess. We absolutely MUST make sure they don’t have the votes. Keep calling your Republican senators at (202) 224-3121. Tell them “NO DEAL” on Trumpcare. Then, tell us how it went.
Much larger, since those suffering from opioid addiction tend have larger underlying health problems—mental and physical—that contributed to their addiction in the first place. Treating the chronic pain, or anxiety, or PTSD has to go along with treating the addiction in order for that treatment to work. "One of the things we’ve seen over and over again is that when you give people supplemental services around addiction treatment—you take care of their pain, you take care of their depression, you take care of their unmanaged hepatitis C, they’re more likely to recover," says Keith Humphreys, a Stanford University psychiatry professor.
That's where Medicaid and other programs come in, and the bill would slash Medicaid. Meanwhile, the budget proposed by the Trump administration would strip $400 million from the HHS agency that oversees mental health and a good chunk of the addiction treatment efforts from the federal government. What's in store is addiction services fighting with children's health and disability and nursing homes and hospitals and everyone else lining up for dramatically reduced funding. There's also a history here—the history of a Republican Congress unanimously rejecting additional emergency funding for the opioid epidemic just last year.
So if Susan Collins (ME), or Capito, or Portman or any other Republican tries to declare victory and say that they secured funding for this epidemic, don't buy it and don't let them get away with it.