Tuesday examining the economic impact of non-medical opioid usage in the United States, and it concludes that from 2015 to 2018 an estimated $631 billion was spent dealing with the crisis, with more to come.
The report, authored by Stoddard Davenport, MPH; Alexandra Weaver, ASA, MAAA and Matt Caverly, examines the cost of opioid misuse on a variety of areas, including health care expenditures, law enforcement and criminal justice programs and early mortality., 33,091 opioid overdose deaths were reported in 2015, a figure that jumped to 42,249 the following year.Early mortality represents the largest economic force in the study.
The second largest cost area is $205 billion in health care, which includes providing emergency services for overdoses and care for infants born with opioid withdrawal and abstinence syndromes. The government has been saddled with a third of the total cost, primarily paid through Medicare and Medicaid, according to the report.
How did this happen? Where were the regulators & referees? How did so many good people look away for so long? How corrupt has our medical system become?
That’s a lot of walls!
Meanwhile the Sacklers who started the opioid crisis are still free and making billions.
It cost me my mother!
Here are the real bad hombres.