$45 Billion to Fight Opioid Abuse? That’s Much Too Little, Experts Say
According to the National Household Survey on Drug Use and Health, there were roughly 1.35 million low-income Americans in 2015 with an opioid use disorder. Only 25 percent of those people get treated in a year
.. Richard G. Frank, a health economics professor at Harvard Medical School, has estimated that last year, people who enrolled in expanded Medicaid incurred about $4.5 billion in costs for mental health and addiction treatment.
.. calculated it would cost $14 billion in the first year and more than $183 billion over a decade to treat addiction and related illnesses in low-income people who would lose coverage under the Republican plan.
.. “One of biggest reasons for the gap in treatment is there aren’t enough trained doctors to deliver the medicine, trained therapists to deliver the therapy,” said Mr. Mendell, who was invited to testify at the first meeting of President Trump’s commission on the opioid crisis this month. “Who’s going to enter the work force knowing the funding is going to run out in 10 years?”