Arizona Republic editorial asks questions about national Opioid Addiction

Obviously, there isn't a media outlet in the US that's not reporting about the national epidemic relating to the Opioid Crises.  

It's an epidemic killing young people, under 55 years old. 

Although a lot of reporting describes the damage caused by opioid addiction, the money to treat this epidemic is difficult to find.  Yet, the cause seems to be related, at least in part, to medical treatment. Therefore, if health insurance helped pay for the cause of this epidemic, then it stands to reason, there should also be money available to treat the consequences, i.e., addiction.

Like any epidemiology research, searching for the root cause of addiction is like finding the germ that causes an infection or the vermin that injects poison into a body.  

What's interesting about this Arizona Republic opinion perspective, is how the analysis about opioids doesn't include the illegal drug agents, the street vendors who make the toxins available to addicts and thereby exacerbate the epidemic. 

Instead, this Editorial Board's opinion makes the patient and the provider the core cause of the disease.

I object to this point of view- but here's how Arizona Republic sees it, an Editorial Board with no medical provider input, that I know about.

In the newspaper "Arizona Republic" the editorial board raises questions, asking why the drug crises has infected the nation, killing our young people.

Our View: What the opioid epidemic says about us

Editorial: It's easy to blame the usual suspects (and we should). But there also are larger issues driving this crisis (Arizona Republic editorial board)

America is addicted and dying from drug overdoses. 

Arizona is anchored squarely in this dysfunctional new reality.

There’s a lot of talk about who is to blame for the epidemic of tragic young people who are dying from opioid deaths.

There’s a bigger need to ask how our culture enabled this crisis.

Round up the usual suspects.

• Our pharmaceutical companies got us here.

• Our doctors got us here.

• Our desire to escape reality got us here.

Let’s look at them one by one:

Drug companies made big promises

Pharmaceutical companies made a lot of money selling opioid painkillers, and some say they did so without regard to the dangers.

On May 31, Ohio filed suit against five pharmaceutical companies saying drug makers spent “millions of dollars on promotional activities and materials that falsely deny or trivialize the risks of opioids while overstating the benefits of using them for chronic pain.”
A similar suit was filed in Mississippi in 2015, and other states, cities and counties have started litigation.

Some people draw parallels with the lawsuits that states – including Arizona – pursued against the tobacco industry in the 1990s. Settlements totaled more than $200 billion nationwide.

But unlike cigarettes, this situation has a middleman who facilitated the substance use.

Doctors over-prescribed painkillers

Too many doctors failed to look closely at the drugs they were prescribing.

Before the spotlight was turned on this problem, it was not uncommon to hear stories of people returning home after surgery with enough oxycodone to chemically enslave or kill them.

In 2015, more than 25,000 people nationwide overdosed on opioids like fentanyl, oxycodone and hydrocodone, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

In Arizona, last year, 790 people died from overdoses of prescription opioids and heroin, according to reporting by The Republic’s Ken Alltucker. That was a 74 percent increase since 2012.

Deaths from heroin – the evil emperor of street drugs – tripled in that time and now account for 39 percent of the opioid deaths.

Painkillers became a gateway to heroin

Experts suggest people who became addicted to prescription opioids are turning to heroin.

Doctors were the gateway for these drugs. Therefore, doctors need to ask themselves if they exercised due diligence before handing out popular prescriptions.

That said, doctors respond to the needs of people with chronic pain — and the tricks of people who doctor-shop for pills to maintain their addiction.

So let's look at the individuals who use the drugs.

It’s hard to blame someone who became addicted to the opioids a doctor prescribed after surgery.

But, continued use becomes opioid abuse, and that is a choice.

We aren’t supposed to say things like that these days. People cling to their victim status. There’s a derogatory label for expecting people to take personal responsibility for what happens to them. Doing so is derided as “shaming.” (In my opinion, do not "shame" the physicians who are treating pain...!!)

The larger issue driving this crisis

But the lack of a strong sense of self-determination and personal responsibility drove this crisis. That's true of the drug company executives, the doctors, the patients and the addicts. (I disagree with this statement. In fact, drug companies, the physicians and the patients were requesting treatment for pain, not as a cure for lack of "self-determination".)

At every level, there was a failure to take a hard look at the consequences of the decisions being made. (Medical recommendations were given to include pain as the 5th vital sign! That was the "hard look" we, meaning nurses and others, were taught to evaluate!)

In Arizona, the highest overdose rates were among those 45 to 54 years old. It’s worth noting that suicide rates in the United States increased from 1999 to 2014, with a sharp rise among men and women ages 45 to 64, according to the CDC.

People in that age group face a much different future than their parents, who often enjoyed retirements supported by pensions and accessible health care. For many who have little savings, less job security and rising health-care costs, the future is a scary place.

Data from Arizona suggests the heroin overdose rate is higher for teens and young adults, who either underestimate the danger of that drug or accept the risk for the sake of escaping a life that is apparently unfulfilling without dangerous intoxicants.
A symptom that society is failing us

This is where we need to ask the big questions about our culture.

What do young people seek in heroin – a drug long known to destroy mind, body and soul?Where was the breakdown in shared moral responsibility that contributed to the prescription opioid crisis?

Where are the social, emotional, faith, family and economic safety nets that people can depend on?

The opioid abuse and overdose epidemic is more than a medical or public-health crisis. It is a symptom of a society that is failing its members.

It is a crisis in which people are apparently so disconnected from a meaningful life that they give themselves to addictive drugs. (IMO, this is much too simplistic a concept.  Drug addiction is related to physiological responses to opioids i.e., "curing pain", as well as to the "meaningfulness" of a person's life!)

We can and should treat the symptoms of this opioid-abuse epidemic. (HELLO? This requires money!)

American also needs to do some soul-searching about the causes of addiction. In my own opinion, like any epidemic- caused by a germ or virus, the root causes must be identified and a cure for the disease must be funded.  Therein is the problem. Drug addiction is a pre-exiting condition and it will be a long time before any health insurance will provide complete coverage to the treatment required to cure this epidemic. Therefore, if the Arizona Republic would like to include integrity into this opinion editorial, the people who wrote the commentary must also call for money to be available to treat the crises.

Congressman Tom Price needs coaching to be an ethical public policy director

"Congressman Price repeatedly told senators that his stock purchases were initiated by his broker and that he was unaware of them." (OMG- that's the biggest "pants on fire" lie any physician-Congressman ever told. Believe me folks, physicians know where their money is invested, trust me.)

REPUBLICAN CONGRESSMAN AND orthopedic surgeon Tom Price, Trump’s nominee for secretary of Health and Human Services, spent as much time his character as he did defending his vision of healthcare for all Americans.

Congressman Tom Price is an investor in health care reaps profits from medical device companies and pharmaceuticals 

The Los Angeles Times reports on the hypocrisy of the physician nominee, who will promote profits for the medical community before he delivers on care for the frail and elderly, in my opinion. By Noam N. Levey

Rep. Tom Price (R-Ga.) told the Senate Health Committee that he would protect vulnerable Americans if he is confirmed as President-elect Donald Trump’s Health and Human Services secretary. (But, he was blinking visibly when confronted by Senator Elizabeth Warren about how he would deliver Trump's promise not to cut Medicare, Medicaid or Social Security.)

But the six-term congressman did not detail how he would fulfill that pledge, including how he would replace the Affordable Care Act and how he would preserve coverage for the more than 100 million Americans who rely on Medicare, Medicaid and the healthcare law, commonly called Obamacare. Price has worked for years to roll back all three.

During a testy four-hour hearing on Capitol Hill — which also featured several heated exchanges about Price’s ethics — Price also repeatedly dodged questions from Democrats seeking assurance that he would preserve basic protections required by law.

Among other things, Obamacare bans lifetime limits on coverage, requires that health plans offer basic benefits such as substance abuse treatment and mandates that plans allow parents to keep their children on their insurance until they are 26.

“My constituents are coming up to me with tears in their eyes wondering what the future holds for their healthcare,” Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), the senior Democrat on the Health Committee, told Price.

Price, whom Trump has said is helping develop the new administration’s proposed Obamacare replacement, repeatedly assured lawmakers that Americans would be able to get the health insurance they want.

“It's absolutely imperative that individuals that have health coverage be able to keep health coverage and move hopefully to greater choices and opportunities for them,” Price told the committee.

At one point, he even said he hopes the Obamacare replacement will cover more people than the current law.

Obamacare has helped more than 20 million previously uninsured Americans gain coverage in the last three years. Repealing it would immediately result in 18 million people losing coverage, according to a new analysis from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.

Price has been among the law’s most ardent critics and has pushed budget plans that would cut trillions of dollars from Medicare and Medicaid.

Like Trump, Price offered no indication how it will be possible to cover more people, preserve consumer protections and make health insurance cheaper all at the same time.

He appeared to support Trump’s repeated assurance that major changes for Medicare are not under consideration.

In the past, Price has been a strong proponent of increasing the Medicare eligibility age from 65 to 67 and shifting more costs to patients by converting Medicare into a voucher system that would give beneficiaries a limited amount of money to shop for private health plans.

However, Price refused to say Wednesday whether he would back efforts to expand the government's authority to negotiate lower prices from drug makers, despite Trump’s recent calls to do so. Price made only a general commitment to help make drugs prices more “reasonable.”  (Makes no sense, because Canadians benefit from negotiated drug prices while Americans must pay retail. Dear Republicans, when Canadians get a discount on the same drugs Americans pay retail prices for- duh? We're subsidizing lower Canadian pharmaceutical prices.)

Trump once made the cost of pharmaceuticals a central part of his campaign healthcare pitch. And at his first news conference last week, the president-elect said drug makers were “getting away with murder.” (Again, Trump lied- pants on fire!)

“We’re the largest buyer of drugs in the world, and yet we don’t bid properly,” Trump said. “And we’re going to start bidding and we’re going to save billions of dollars over a period of time.”

Republicans have long opposed allowing Medicare to use its market power to negotiate lower prices for seniors.

And the pharmaceutical industry, which also opposes price negotiation, has protected its interests by lavishing political contributions on members of Congress. Price himself has received tens of thousands of dollars from drug makers and has also invested heavily in industry stocks, records show.

Those ties featured prominently in Wednesday’s hearing, as Democrats pounded Price for repeatedly trading stocks in healthcare companies that were affected by his work in Congress.

As the hearing grew increasingly tense, several lawmakers reiterated calls for an independent investigation of Price for pushing legislation that increased the value of several stocks shortly after he bought them.

These Republicans hate Obamacare, but aren't ready to give it up just yet »

“This whole administration is starting to look like a bit of a get-rich-quick scheme," Sen. Christopher S. Murphy (D-Conn.) told Price, linking the congressman’s stock trading to Trump's refusal to divest his business holdings.

Last year, Price bought up to $15,000 worth of stock in medical device maker Zimmer Biomet just a week before introducing legislation that would have delayed a new regulation that threatened the company’s bottom line, according to CNN.

Also last year, Price invested as much as $90,000 in six drug makers shortly before leading a legislative effort to derail an Obama administration proposal to control Medicare spending on cancer drugs, Time magazine reported.

All six companies make cancer drugs that could have been affected by the regulation. And they all benefited when Price’s effort was successful.

Price repeatedly told senators that his stock purchases were initiated by his broker and that he was unaware of them.

This whole administration is starting to look like a bit of a get-rich-quick scheme," Sen. Christopher S. Murphy (D-Conn.) told Price, linking the congressman’s stock trading to Trump's refusal to divest his business holdings.

Last year, Price bought up to $15,000 worth of stock in medical device maker Zimmer Biomet just a week before introducing legislation that would have delayed a new regulation that threatened the company’s bottom line, according to CNN.

Also last year, Price invested as much as $90,000 in six drug makers shortly before leading a legislative effort to derail an Obama administration proposal to control Medicare spending on cancer drugs, Time magazine reported.

All six companies make cancer drugs that could have been affected by the regulation. And they all benefited when Price’s effort was successful.

Price repeatedly told senators that his stock purchases were initiated by his broker and that he was unaware of them.

“I am offended by the insinuation,” he told Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) after she outlined his extensive work to derail a proposed regulation, even after he had been notified that his broker had bought stock in one of the healthcare companies that stood to benefit.

Several Democratic senators incredulously asked why Price had not directed his broker to avoid investing in companies that would be affected by his work. Price said he complied with congressional ethics rules.

In one of the oddest exchanges of the day, Price refused to acknowledge that human activity is responsible for climate change, despite widespread scientific consensus that this is the case.

“The climate is obviously changing,” Price told Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I). “The question from a scientific standpoint is what effect does human behavior and human activity have on that, and what we can do to mitigate that,” Price said. “And I believe that's a question that needs to be studied and evaluated.”

A growing number of public health and physician groups are raising concerns about climate change’s impact on people’s health.

And at almost the same time as Price’s hearing, Trump’s pick to head the Environmental Protection Agency acknowledged to another Senate committee that human activity is, in fact, changing the climate.

(I'm distressed, disappointed and dismayed about Congressman Tom Price as Health and Human Services nominee. He's a physician before he's a public servant, a surgeon before he's a health policy director and he's obviously more interested in his investments than providing ethical leadership for the frail, elderly and needy American citizens.)

Perhaps Tom Price can advertise: "Ethics life coach needed."