Drugs for Dollars: How Medicaid Helps Fuel the Opioid Epidemic
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Serial Number
Levin Center Identifier
Document Date
2018-01-17
Report Length
164 pages
Policy Agendas Project Major Code
Policy Agendas Project Minor Code
Additional, Minority, Dissenting Views
Report Type
Found Using Methodology
Yes
Subcommittee(s)
Commission(s)
Idependent Author(s)
Brief Executive Summary
The Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, on behalf of Chairman Ron Johnson, issued a Majority Staff report on the role that Medicaid has played in the opioid epidemic by facilitating the use and distribution of opioids. The report found that the expansion of Medicaid has contributed to the opioid epidemic by providing prescription opioids to a larger population and making it profitable to abuse and sell drugs, as represented by criminal cases where Medicaid was improperly used, to obtain and sometimes resell opioids.