I struggle with this to as a nurse because say a heroin addict overdoses one or two times a year which results and a trip to the emergency room. In Los Angeles county the fire department bill is going to be approximately $1,200 plus the billing for physicians, radiology, lab and any additional services which depending on how complex the overdoses could be up to $25,000. The hospital isn't going to get reimbursed for these costs completely and some would argue that these patients don't deserve this type of treatment based on the cost and resources needed because it might look like it's an endless money pit.
So now the argument is if you give them narcan for free it might help reduce the overall impact or specifically cost to treat them. So instead of $25,000 per visit it only becomes the cost of the medicine.
Here's where it gets more of the complex.. and Hassan on the Patriot act Netflix series has a great episode that covers a lot of these problems. part of the issue isn't just that they're getting this medication for free but that the drugmakers are pushing to sell this medication to these types of clients because they're essentially capitalizing on the opiate epidemic. now that's prescription and non-prescription opioids to be clear.
A lot of heroin addicts are really functional. Heroin has a really long half life which means that you can probably shoot up once a day and it will last you the entire day. Now heroin is being cut with fentanyl which is very strong. One dose of fentanyl is .05 mg where the same dose of morphine is 4 mg. So if too much fentanyl gets into that heroin it's going to kill somebody very fast. Most of these addicts don't want to die because they enjoy getting high. opioid use has a well-documented consistent use history throughout all of civilization. People have been getting high since they realize they could.
So now you might think well you shouldn't be doing drugs anyway.. well there's a lot of things that people shouldn't be doing that are illegal but people do them anyway. This is an undeniable fact of life.
there's a couple different morally complex issues.. given the opioid epidemic how come we're not policing more diligently or educating people to not use this type of recreational drug. do we let the people that make these drug-using decisions live with their consequences? Is it fair to other people for them to receive this type of medication for free because their addiction has created irreversible chemical changes that lead to personality changes and psychiatric problems which then leads to them being assigned as a permanently disabled citizen which then leads to them receiving free healthcare.
There are so many layers of bullshit and these. The drug farmers are predators, the cartels are predators, the pharmacy companies producing narcan are predators, the hospital's attempting to Bill insurance companies are predators, the insurance companies are predators, and we as individuals continue to hope that people will make decisions that support our best interest.
It's madness from top to bottom. We expect people to do the right thing when we are continuously presented with evidence proving otherwise.
By the way Purdue pharmacy just filed for bankruptcy today because they were forced to settle due to their involvement in the opioid crisis but guess what they also produce narcan so that means that they're going to be back in business in a couple years.
usernamesuckk on September 16th, 2019 at 11:06 UTC »
Get hooked on heroin and then you can get free meds too. Easy solution
Dianwei32 on September 16th, 2019 at 13:02 UTC »
Instead of asking why they get theirs free, ask why yours is $500/month.
peripeteia_1981 on September 16th, 2019 at 18:02 UTC »
I struggle with this to as a nurse because say a heroin addict overdoses one or two times a year which results and a trip to the emergency room. In Los Angeles county the fire department bill is going to be approximately $1,200 plus the billing for physicians, radiology, lab and any additional services which depending on how complex the overdoses could be up to $25,000. The hospital isn't going to get reimbursed for these costs completely and some would argue that these patients don't deserve this type of treatment based on the cost and resources needed because it might look like it's an endless money pit.
So now the argument is if you give them narcan for free it might help reduce the overall impact or specifically cost to treat them. So instead of $25,000 per visit it only becomes the cost of the medicine.
Here's where it gets more of the complex.. and Hassan on the Patriot act Netflix series has a great episode that covers a lot of these problems. part of the issue isn't just that they're getting this medication for free but that the drugmakers are pushing to sell this medication to these types of clients because they're essentially capitalizing on the opiate epidemic. now that's prescription and non-prescription opioids to be clear.
A lot of heroin addicts are really functional. Heroin has a really long half life which means that you can probably shoot up once a day and it will last you the entire day. Now heroin is being cut with fentanyl which is very strong. One dose of fentanyl is .05 mg where the same dose of morphine is 4 mg. So if too much fentanyl gets into that heroin it's going to kill somebody very fast. Most of these addicts don't want to die because they enjoy getting high. opioid use has a well-documented consistent use history throughout all of civilization. People have been getting high since they realize they could.
So now you might think well you shouldn't be doing drugs anyway.. well there's a lot of things that people shouldn't be doing that are illegal but people do them anyway. This is an undeniable fact of life.
there's a couple different morally complex issues.. given the opioid epidemic how come we're not policing more diligently or educating people to not use this type of recreational drug. do we let the people that make these drug-using decisions live with their consequences? Is it fair to other people for them to receive this type of medication for free because their addiction has created irreversible chemical changes that lead to personality changes and psychiatric problems which then leads to them being assigned as a permanently disabled citizen which then leads to them receiving free healthcare.
There are so many layers of bullshit and these. The drug farmers are predators, the cartels are predators, the pharmacy companies producing narcan are predators, the hospital's attempting to Bill insurance companies are predators, the insurance companies are predators, and we as individuals continue to hope that people will make decisions that support our best interest.
It's madness from top to bottom. We expect people to do the right thing when we are continuously presented with evidence proving otherwise.
By the way Purdue pharmacy just filed for bankruptcy today because they were forced to settle due to their involvement in the opioid crisis but guess what they also produce narcan so that means that they're going to be back in business in a couple years.