Trump's Budget Could Accelerate the Opioid Crisis

Candidate Donald Trump tapped into the angst and fear gripping rural America. He promised out-of-work coal miners he'd get them their old jobs back, even if that's likely impossible; told seniors and poor people he was the only candidate who wouldn't touch their Social Security or Medicaid, even as his party actively tried to overhaul those programs; and told the nation he'd end the opioid epidemic ripping through communities across America – a promise he's now also turning his back on.

The president's budget released this week proposes slashing Medicaid by between $610 billion and $1.4 trillion. (The budget is so shoddily produced that budget experts and the administration have failed to agree on the actual amount of the proposed cuts.) This could be devastating for all 50 states.

The Kaiser Family Foundation reports that about 30 percent of the roughly two million people who are struggling with opioid and heroin addiction in the U.S. receive treatment from Medicaid or the Children's Health Insurance Program, known as CHIP. The treatment comes in the form of inpatient detox programs, hospitalization, outpatient programs and continuous case management so people don't relapse. But Medicaid is largely free, or at least low-cost, for patients, and that has Republicans up in arms.

"We have two groups of people: those Americans who believe in more freedom, and ... those Americans who believe in more free stuff," Republican Sen. John Kennedy says at Thursday's budget hearing, at which Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney was testifying.

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