This Senator Just Blasted His GOP Colleagues for Ignoring the Opioid Epidemic

”If this becomes law, there is no Narcan for Medicaid. Once it’s cut by Trumpcare, it is dead.”

Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) took to the Senate floor Monday night to blast his Republican colleagues for attempting to pass a health care bill that, amid a spiraling nationwide opioid epidemic, could eliminate insurance coverage for thousands of Americans that depend on it for addiction treatment. Markey pointed to the GOP’s efforts to cut Medicaid funding as particularly harmful for individuals dealing with an opioid addiction (the House’s health care bill included $834 billion in reductions to Medicaid spending).

“If this becomes law, there is no Narcan for Medicaid,” Markey said, referring to the brand name for naloxone, the overdose reversal medication. “Once it’s cut by Trumpcare, it is dead. Those devastating cuts would grind the progress we’ve made in expanding access to opioid treatment to a screeching halt and kick people currently in treatment to the curb.”

Senate Republicans are working on their bill to repeal Obamacare behind closed doors, so the details of how it would effect drug users in recovery are unknown. But an estimated 2.8 million Americans with a substance abuse disorder, including 220,000 who are addicted to opioids, would lose some or all of their insurance coverage if Obamacare is repealed, according to an analysis by researchers Richard Frank of Harvard Medical School and Sherry Glied of New York University. The Congressional Budget Office found that if a version of Trumpcare that passed the House last month became law, addiction treatment services “could increase by thousands of dollars in a given year” for those who aren’t covered by insurance through their employers.

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

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