An opioid epidemic is ravaging the country, and the Silver State is no exception. So why is Sen. Dean Heller considering voting for a bill that would cut back on funding to combat the epidemic while simultaneously lavishing billions in tax breaks on the very drug companies who have contributed to it?
From 2013 to 2015, opioid-related hospitalizations spiked more than 150 percent in Nevada. In 2015, 465 Nevada residents died from opioid use — largely from prescription painkillers and heroin — and it’s been reported that doctors in the state write 94 painkiller prescriptions for every 100 residents.
Elected officials are sounding the alarm and working to address this crisis. While signing a bipartisan bill to track overdoses in real time, Gov. Brian Sandoval noted “we lose one Nevadan a day with regard to opioid abuse, and that is one too many.” Legislators from Democratic Assemblywoman Daniele Monroe-Moreno to Independent Sen. Patricia Farley to Republican Assemblywoman Jill Tolles have worked on legislation to stem the tide.
Yet despite these concerns here at home, Sen. Heller is considering whether he can support a Senate GOP health care bill that would undermine our ability to address this emergency. The Better Care Reconciliation Act would strip 30,000 Nevadans with a substance use disorder currently covered by Medicaid expansion of their coverage. More jaw-dropping? The Center for American Progress reports that tax breaks contained in the bill would provide millions in tax breaks to drug companies that are currently being sued for their potential contribution to the opioid crisis.
According to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, the BCRA would give insurance companies, drug manufacturers and the wealthiest Americans billions in tax breaks. Opioid producers in particular would benefit from the elimination of a fee on brand-name prescription drugs. The bottom line: drug companies stand to receive $25.7 billion over the next 10 years, with wealthy shareholders and other investors reaping the rewards of an unneeded tax cut as company profits expand. For example, the biopharmaceutical company Cephalon paid $375 million, plus interest, to resolve False Claims Act allegations with the amount shared by 14 state Medicaid programs, including Nevada. In 2014, Cephalon paid a brand name drug fee of $40 million dollars.
In June, Sen. Heller said he could not support the BCRA. He said that “probably half” of the dollars that were spent on Medicaid in Nevada were on mental health and opioid abuse. His concern over Medicaid funding as it relates to the opioid epidemic is well-founded, as the National Association of Medicaid Directors has noted that, “Medicaid … is the most comprehensive and effective way [to] address the opioid epidemic in this country.” And that makes sense: If you cut care to prevent addiction and overdoses and threaten protections for addiction treatment coverage, the problem will only grow worse.
While some versions of the GOP health care bill include funding to combat the opioid epidemic, it is far too little and offset but the drastic cuts to programs like Medicaid. Hundreds of people are dying every week from this crisis, and $4.5 billion a year is a drop in the ocean of the true funding needed.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s latest iteration of the BCRA still includes deep cuts to Medicaid to pay for tax breaks for those who don’t need them, including drug companies who have been sued for their role in creating the opioid crisis. Not much has changed. And while our country is confronting the deadliest drug overdose crisis in U.S. history, I hope that Sen. Heller will stick to his word that “we can’t let fall behind the progress we’ve made in Nevada.”
Yvanna Cancela is a Nevada state senator. She serves District 10, located in Clark County.
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