Nancy PelosiVerified account

A year after President Trump called for a public health emergency to control the opioid crisis, the administration is working to roll back health insurance coverage that public health experts say is critical to reining in an epidemic that killed nearly 50,000 Americans in 2017.

The White House is calling — in its 2019 budget — for more than $1 trillion in cuts over the next decade in federal aid to state Medicaid programs, which are a leading source of insurance coverage for people suffering from addiction.

U.S. Justice Depart is backing a sweeping legal challenge to the ACA that would eliminate a reqmt in the law that insurers cover people with preexisting medical conditions. That would effectively allow insurers to once again deny coverage to people seeking addiction treatment.

And just this week, the Trump administration took new steps to loosen rules on commercial health insurers to allow for skimpier health plans that don’t have to cover a full range of benefits, including treatment for substance use disorders such as opioid addiction.

“What has really worked here is Medicaid expansion,” said Linda Rosenberg, president of the National Council for Behavioral Health. “Yet this administration is continually attacking entitlements because of the deficit. That really concerns us.”

Trump admin’s health ins moves come amid some promising signs that t/sharp increase in opioid overdose deaths in recent yrs may be slowing. Preliminary data reported by the Centers for Disease Control& Prevention suggest that the number of deaths flattened in late 2017/early 2018

At the same time, lawmakers from both parties were at the White House on Wednesday to celebrate a large opioid bill they passed earlier this fall.

“We have mobilized the entire federal government to address this crisis,” the president said at the ceremony. “Together, we are going to end the scourge of drug addiction in America.”