Republican congressman blames opioid crisis on Medicaid

[turbinetree]

Source: Think Progress

Republican Congressman Jim Renacci (OH) argued this week that Medicaid expansion in Ohio and other states may have caused the current opioid crisis ravaging the country. His comments come just ahead of a highly-anticipated vote on the Graham-Cassidy heath care bill, which would end Medicaid expansion and, eventually, the entire program.

“Medicaid was, in some ways, the driver of this opioid addiction,” Renacci said, in an interview on WAKR radio. “…If [the expansion was] needed, how come 19 states that have not expanded Medicaid are doing better than Ohio? And how come Ohio, who’s the number one state dependent on Medicaid expansion, is also the number one state for opioid overdose and addiction? The numbers and the facts just don’t lie.”

Read more: https://thinkprogress.org/republican-congressman-medicaid-opioid-deb012666925/

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NO asshole it was the fucking drug companies and doctors just writing prescriptions because after all some of them were on the take -------------check the facts in states like West Virginia asshole

FUCK YOU........................call this assholes office

US Capitol Switchboard [phone]

[IronLionZion]

1. That's why Rush Limbaugh became addicted to opioids

because he was so angry from ranting nonstop about Medicaid that he had to medicate himself illegally

These assholes have no shame. Medicaid probably helps addicts get treatment.

[BumRushDaShow]

2. When making meth got harder and harder

they switched drugs.

[Sunlei]

5. actually they can make meth in a soda bottle for about 10cents- prescription addicts switched to her

heroin because that's much cheaper and easy to get on the streets of America. The concentrate fentanyl must be so easy to smuggle because hundreds of doses are such a tiny bit of powder.

all the local police are out sniffing for marijuana so they can seize cars, enter homes and find easy cash from local citizens. grouping up with the Feds searching for plants for Republicans "war on a plant".

[BumRushDaShow]

10. The formulations in the most-used amphetamine/ephedrine-based products

have been or are being or adjusted to include other chemical entities that make it harder to synthesize into the illicit forms, so it was in the interest to move elsewhere (notably too due to the hazards of the chemicals required to prepare).

Heroin has been around for over a century but due to the issue of infected-needles, etc., it went underground in the underground... but is now back thanks to newer forms and accessibility to clean needles (and of course now enhanced with newer drugs like fentanyl).

[Sunlei]

3. who mega-profited from $25+ a tablet pain medicine prescriptions?

[ck4829]

4. I loosely know one of the (now former) doctors caught up in this, Margaret Temponeras

She took any form of insurance, not just medicaid.

[jmowreader]

6. Come and see

Ohio has...

the fourth-highest unemployment rate in the country: https://www.bls.gov/web/laus/laumstrk.htm

over 100,000 female-headed families receiving child support: http://datacenter.kidscount.org/data/tables/66-female-headed-families-receiving-child-support?loc=37&loct=2#detailed/2/any/false/869,36,868,867,133/any/366,367

half a million kids living in 100 percent poverty: http://datacenter.kidscount.org/data/tables/43-children-in-poverty-100-percent-poverty?loc=37&loct=2#detailed/2/any/false/870,573,869,36,868/any/321,322

half the kids in your state are on free or reduced-price school lunch: http://datacenter.kidscount.org/data/tables/2470-children-receiving-free-reduced-price-lunch?loc=37&loct=2#detailed/2/any/false/868,867,133/any/5144

and a third are eligible for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program: http://datacenter.kidscount.org/data/tables/9235-children-eligible-for-snap-fiscal-year-2011-current?loc=37&loct=2#detailed/2/any/false/573,869,36,868,867/any/18290,18291

and over half a million of your kids don't know where their next meal is coming from: http://datacenter.kidscount.org/data/tables/5201-children-living-in-households-that-were-food-insecure-at-some-point-during-the-year?loc=37&loct=2#detailed/2/any/false/869,36,868,867,133/any/11674,11675

I don't think you have an opioid problem because of Medicaid. I think you have an opioid problem because people are using oxycontin to help them forget they live in a Republican Shithole.

Here is a map from the CDC showing the states with statistically significant drug overdose death rate increases from 2014 to 2015: https://www.cdc.gov/drugoverdose/data/statedeaths.html

This I find interesting: Epidemiologists talk about disease clusters, which happens when lots of people in a particular area come down with the same disease at the same time. When that happens, the CDC sends in teams of investigators to find the source of the infection. Look at the CDC's map and you can see an opiate disease cluster - it runs right down the heart of the Appalachian Coal Seam. Every stinking state that mines coal on the Eastern Seaboard is on this list. Being untrained in epidemiology but very experienced in evaluating the human condition, the first thing that comes to mind is the cluster is happening because while we liberals are discussing the need to end the coal industry so as to help the planet, and the Deplorables are discussing how stupid liberals are, the people in the coal belt are doing opiates to help them forget how fucked they are. And guess what, Congressman Renacci: your state is in the coal belt. If your fucking party would quit trying to repeal Obamacare - what are you up to, a hundred and fifty attempts? - and at least try to think of something that would help the people, we might not be facing the shitstorm we are now.

[Stargazer99]

7. You have it right! The living hell like me that people are living through

My country thinks nothing of exposing me to raidiation as a kid
My country lets my girl die from lack of medical care because we didn't have enough money DESPITE being employed to get her the RX she needed
And this educational loan that destroys the young
while the financial component of the country just cannot bleed the common man enough to make them happy
I am disgusted with this country-we just take it and take it

[Judi Lynn]

12. Excellent information. Thank you. n/t

[The Wizard]

8. Thought disorders and loose associations

are covered by Obamacare.

[George II]

9. That......................and the EMAILS!!!

[Judi Lynn]

11. Another Republican genius humanitarian:

Derp!

[irisblue]

13. & this A Hole is running for Governor

and he will get votes.

[moonseller66]

14. It's soooo easy to quit drugs, right?

And when your Trump Friends say all those users have to do is quit, ask them if THEY smoke or drink. If they do ask them to stop cold turkey. Then laugh at them.

Wonder how many assholes in Congress can't quit smoking or drinking or want to (great role models, eh!)? Of course, to them, that's different!