“Even as the heroin and prescription opioid crisis deepens nationally, thousands of poor patients with addiction cannot get treatment in states where political leaders have opposed the Affordable Care Act.
Those patients are languishing on waiting lists for recovery programs or unable to get medicine to combat addiction because they can’t afford prescriptions, according to health officials nationwide.
Poor adults in states that expanded Medicaid through the health law have access to health insurance and a way to pay for addiction treatment. But 19 states, all with Republican governors or legislatures, have rejected federal aid to expand Medicaid eligibility, essentially making coverage available only to poor children, pregnant women and seniors.
Read more at: http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-opioids-obamacare-20160613-snap-story.html
Source: LATimes.com – June 13, 2016