Obamacare's Medicaid expansion is helping fight West Virginia's opioid epidemic

A new study suggests that expanding Medicaid helped get more West Virginians into addiction treatment.

By German Lopez@germanrlopezgerman.lopez@vox.com Apr 3, 2019, 8:00am EDT

A growing body of research suggests that a major part of Obamacare, the Medicaid expansion, is playing a significant role in fighting the deadly and growing opioid epidemic.

The latest study, published in Health Affairs by Brendan Saloner, Rachel Landis, Bradley Stein, and Colleen Barry, found that after West Virginia expanded Medicaid, the number of people diagnosed for opioid use disorder under the public insurance program rose — and, crucially, the number of people on buprenorphine, one of two gold-standard medications for opioid addiction, went up as well.

This is particularly pertinent for West Virginia. It’s the state with the highest drug overdose death rate in the country, at 57.8 per 100,000 people in 2017. The next highest state was Ohio, with a drug overdose death rate of 46.3.

The Health Affairs study suggests that the Medicaid expansion, which began in 2014, helped get more people into treatment. The number of people under the Medicaid expansion diagnosed with opioid use disorder more than doubled between January 2014 and December 2016, and the number of people on buprenorphine treatment increased sixfold.

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https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/4/3/18290820/obamacare-medicaid-expansion-opioid-epidemic-west-virginia