At most, patients are subjected to a small copayment, sometimes as low as one dollar for 240 opioid pills
In 1978 I had an Unlimited Prescription and paid $2 for a bottle of 100 every 2-3 days near the end when I had the surgery.
No... as with all things libtard, the consequences are intended.
“Adjusting for age, the rate of drug-overdose deaths more than tripled between 1999 and 2016.”
What the hell does that mean? “Adjusting for age” how? What age group are they looking at?
They didn’t account for the fact that people who need these pain killers are more likely to be on medicaid because they can’t work, while people who can still work are more likely to have other insurance.
Post hoc ergo propter hoc all over the place.
Put this report in the round file labeled “aggravated jackassery.”
If this is the kind of slobbering idiocy that senators are hearing, no wonder they haven’t done anything right since the repeal of prohibition.
Some of the raw comparisons should be taken with a grain of salt. People in chronic pain and/or addicted to Opiods are probably more likely to exhaust their resources and end up on Medicaid. Which could account for some of the percentile differences.
That said, selling painkillers obtained through Medicaid and VA is a problem.
A huge percentage of the “customers” who buy illegal opioids are also on Medicaid or are uninsured.
Fact: about 65% of Emergency Room medical bills for opioid overdose are paid by Medicaid.
In other words - Medicaid is paying for opioid prescriptions; then, Medicaid clients sell opioid pills at a huge profit to other Medicaid clients; then, both sets of clients go to the Emergency Room when they OD; then, Medicaid pays their OD medical bills!
This article is missing something obvious: A higher % of Medicaid patients than non-Medicaid patients are going to be prone to addiction. For some, that’s how they ended up in poverty.
This is NOT true of all — many folks simply run out of money before they pass on, due to high health care costs. This also misses the simple truth that if you give more people relief from pain, via opioids, you get more addicts. But, I find it rather hard to believe that in 2018 we can’t use existing database technology to drastically curtail the supply to resellers and doctor shoppers.
HHS even before ACA, but on steroids with ACA, is about more than just money. In Jan 2001 the Joint Commission on Pain Management published an article written by lobbyists that advised all medical professionals that Pain Management and Pain relief was their top priority, even above curing the primary diagnosis.
The HHS adopted this as advisory to all medical professionals and institutions participating Medicare and Medicaid.
Then, under Obama it escalated from advisory to mandatory. To get paid any Medicare or Medicaid money, to participate in any of the grants and studies, to get government for anything, the providers were mandated to relieve pain first and formost.
This included dentists, optometrists, psychiatrists as well as surgeons. Your getting paid by the government to help a person on a program, get him some pain pills before anything else.
This was not only the Obama way, it was the Bush way, it was the pharma lobbyist way, (Johnson & Johnson dude led the way). Check out 2001 to 2017. A few lonely voices argued against this policy. They did not get the headlines in the trade journals. They get no credit now. The johnny-come-latelys get the headlines and credit.
I remember 0bama saying something about when someone gets to be a certain age, should we spend the money to treat them and get them surgery, or do we save all that and just give them a pill instead.
“Maybe you’re better off not having the surgery, but taking the painkiller.” - Barack Obama
Thanks for posting -
http://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3626391/posts
Medicaid, ObamaCare Driving Opioid Epidemic: Senate Report
New American ^ | Friday, 26 January 2018 | Michael Tennant