More on Obama's legacy and really only significant achievement of his presidency. Has the ACA made the opioid crisis explode? It really took his administration all too long to respond to the epidemic that was killing tens of thousands of Americans yearly. After all, the CDC issued a statement in 2011 that showed a building problem of prescription drugs. Why was his administration so nonchalant about the issue?
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/t...oblem-with-heroin-and-opioids/article/2601312
http://www.dailywire.com/news/18009/opioid-crisis-got-worse-thanks-obamacare-aaron-bandler
I've seen some really dumb things before, but those two articles will probably remain at the top of my list forever. Not aimed at you, Kory. I'm assuming you didn't really read them? Because you'd have seen the egregious flaws, too.
People with insurance are more likely to use health services? Really? What a shocker! This guy wrote a whole article to explain something most people understood as an adolescent? Sheesh.
Of special note is laying out a case that the ACA is to blame by explicitly lying about data in your charts. Federal Medicaid Expansion didn't even start until 2014? No problem, just use charts showing overdose changes from 2010-2015. Close enough. I mean they passed ACA in 2010, so it counts, right? This guy would be laughed out of peer review and have tomatoes thrown at his head.
The particular demographic (White, under 55) examined is also one that was highly susceptible to "losing insurance" due to job loss, spousal job loss, or aging out of parents' coverage. Furthermore, some of the most frequent OD victims are actually chronic pain patients -- people who frequently couldn't qualify or afford insurance prior to the ACA due to having a preexisting condition. The random Twitter account used as a source obviously didn't have any data that showed whether or not new Medicaid patients were the source for an increase in OD rate or if it was due to patients being able to obtain private insurance again.
Remember, ACA Medicaid expansion didn't start until 2014 at the EARLIEST. Preexisting insurance high risk pool, dependent coverage until age 26, and other changes became effective in 2011 or even earlier.
To muddy the waters further, the overall ban on excluding those with preexisting conditions kiosks) kicked off in 2014 just like ACA Medicaid expansion. I don't see anywhere where that was separated or broken out. Last time I checked, in excess of 85% of Americans support that part of the ACA. No one wants to there to be a preexisting conditions exclusion clause (I do, but not for the reason people would think).
So, the data the guy is using doesn't really even cover the Medicaid expansion population (at best he covers a year of data, but uses 5 years of overall data), and the brief part of it that it covers is muddied by the removal of preexisting conditions clauses at the exact same time. At best the author is completely and totally intellectually dishonest. At worst, they are too ignorant to even know that they screwed up.
Finally, we should look at the reason that many of these states said they wanted to expand Medicaid...wait for it...THE OPIOID EPIDEMIC. That's right! By the 2013/2014 decision point for states, the epidemic was already at a crescendo. Guess what was happening to paramedics, hospitals, and medical providers that were treating OD victims? Losing copious amounts of money and on the brink of shutting down. Opiate addicts rarely have insurance or cash/assets. Thus, service was being provided for free and heavily taxing health systems. And guess what people that don't have insurance or money can't do either? Attend rehab or outpatient treatment! They also can't afford replacement therapies like Methadone or Suboxone.
It is hardly a surprise that the states with the worst opiate problems chose to expand coverage in 2014. They needed to keep their hospitals open, their paramedic services on call, and needed treatment options for people that have zero or insurance coverage. Nine out of the Top 11 States for drug ODs expanded Medicaid.
It is currently only 2017. States that expanded Medicaid would just now be getting good datasets together. This is a very complicated issue, so I urge people to examine any article or link that they read or stumble upon. Does the data they are showing actually make sense? Are they trying to fit a point to the data rather than the other way around?
Bottom line, articles saying the ACA caused or exacerbated the Opioid Epidemic are total BS.
I'm a major critic of the ACA (for numerous reasons), but misleading articles like the ones posted are the reason we can't have any sensible debate about what needs to be done.
I've laid out my very Conservative thoughts on fixing healthcare before. The best plans I've seen also provide for all children and the truly indigent, but would create wealth in this country instead of healthcare being a blackhole for tax dollars. But, because these plans actually obliterate large insurance companies and give people control of their own care, they would never pass.
The ACA was never a liberal/Conservative issue or Democrat/Republican. It was always about who wants a bigger government and crony capitalism versus those that wanted to experiment and find real solutions. Unfortunately the latter was such a small number of politicians that their voice/vote never mattered.
I'm sure sending Roy Moore to Washington will fix the issue. Or, for that matter, Doug Jones.
I wanted people to read and see for themselves to make that determination.
