March 16, 2017
ACTUALLY, STRIPPING EVERYONE OF HEALTHCARE WOULD SOLVE THE OPIOD PROBLEM:
How the GOP healthcare plan would worsen the opioid crisis (Doyle McManus, 3/15/17, LA Times)
A drug epidemic is ravaging the United States, and it's getting worse, not better. More than 52,000 Americans died from drug overdoses in 2015, more than died from automobile accidents or firearms. That's far more than died from overdoses in any year during the crack epidemic of the 1980s.Most of those deaths were from opioids - prescription painkillers, heroin and fentanyl, a dangerous synthetic drug. In Maryland, where I live, opioid deaths jumped 62% in the first three quarters of 2016; Gov. Larry Hogan, a moderate Republican, declared a state of emergency and asked the federal government for help.But you wouldn't know that from the American Health Care Act of 2017, the House Republican proposal to repeal Obamacare and replace it with a smaller, cheaper health insurance program.Not only does the bill offer no solutions for the drug crisis; it would make the problem worse by making dramatic cuts in Medicaid, the healthcare program that covers low-income people.
Make consumers pay for their own meds and they'll stop taking them.
Posted by Orrin Judd at March 16, 2017 9:15 AM