How Medicaid cuts could exacerbate the opioid epidemic, By Ronald Brownstein, July 13, 2017, The Atlantic: “When Christie Green took her job three years ago as public-health director for the Cumberland Valley District in southeastern Kentucky, she had nearly two decades of experience in the state’s public-health system. But Green still wasn’t prepared for what she saw when her predecessor took her around this hardscrabble swathe of Appalachia centered on Clay County, which The New York Times once described as the hardest place in the United States to live. ‘In the first week,’ Green recently told me, ‘I met more people who were raising their grandchildren than I had in my entire career before that…’”
Tag: Addiction
Medicaid and Addiction Treatment
Medicaid expansion has delivered access to addiction treatment, report finds, By Sarah Fentem, July 7, 2017, National Public Radio: “This week, as senators have decamped from Washington for the Fourth of July recess, the future of the Senate’s Affordable Care Act replacement plan — and by extension, Medicaid — remains uncertain. Just days before the recess, a report from the Urban Institute, a public policy think tank, detailed big increases in Medicaid spending on opioid addiction treatment under the Affordable Care Act. It’s a trend that could be reversed if the Senate’s plan passes…”
Foster Care and the Opioid Crisis
The opioid crisis is straining the nation’s foster-care systems, By Perry Stein and Lindsey Bever, July 1, 2017, Washington Post: “Deb McLaughlin’s 3-year-old grandson climbed all over her, pleading to play trucks, restless as always. Her 1-year-old foster daughter, who had just woken from a midday nap, sat in her lap, wearing a frilly dress and an irresistible smile. At least McLaughlin doesn’t have to worry about the daily shots of methadone anymore, at least these babies no longer scream and shake for the opioids to which they were born addicted. This isn’t what McLaughlin envisioned for her empty nest years in rural Maine, trading camping and four-wheeling trips for social-worker check-ins, meetings with behavioral therapists and supervised visits with the drug-addicted biological parents who had to give up these children. McLaughlin’s daughter, who once dreamed of being a lawyer, is one of the millions of Americans addicted to opioids and one of thousands of parents whom state governments have deemed unfit to care for their own children…”