First came the “Let’s get rid of prior authorization for opiod treatment” which Governor Cuomo of New York signed, but vetoed for Medicaid enrollees. Which of course made the bill useless.
That was 2019. And even if one argues that it doesn’t count because it was pre-pandemic, that argument presumes that Medicaid clients don’t matter. He justified the veto because of the cost. Over the next two years, who here wants to say that any one of the overdose deaths didn’t matter?
Put directly, when was it ever justifiable to let people die because keeping them alive was too expensive? We don’t even do that to prisoners on Death Row. They’re fed. They’re treated. The cost? I don’t know. We do it anyway.
Oh, I know people have always justified such things as letting the poor die even when it’spossibleto save them. But how justifiable were they? Even Ghengis Kahn saw no honor or practicality in slaughter; as he approached a villa, all it had to do was surrender, and mostly the people would be spared. If Khan was a bloody conqueror and yet spared lives, why do we, calling ourselves so much more civilized, condemn so many?
Again, those who were on Medicaid were not valued as much as the cost of a voluntary program with delays for treatment removed.
I know the rehab program is keyed to keeping people hooked on methadone. Let’s change one thing at a time. Even having a user safely on methadone is better than having them overdose and end up in a coma in the Emergency Room. Or needing to be buried by the city or state because there’s no next-of-kin who can or will do it.
The end game–the goal– of every program should be Suboxone treatment: in the link are busted myths laid out plainly by the esteemed Harvard Medical School. Pay close attention to these myths and the realities which contradict them.
Opiate addicts and others increased in number during the pandemic, and so did overdose statistics. The numbers in any statistic like this are people. Human beings who still have rights, still have potential, still have gifts that we can all benefit from. Cuomo put money above their humanity, especially people of color, who need treatment to be immediate, with no time lag. That is unacceptable and inhumane, and makes me pretty certain that race was a consideration he couldn’t have possibly missed. Who’s expendable?
No one is.
And until we place every human life on a value scale that’s equal to each other and worth more than money, we cannot hope to survive as a species. We don’t live in Khan’s world.
We live in a much more dangerous one.
Memoirs of an American Asshole 
I signed a few on the petitions for decriminalizing drugs. And this bill . Its the start of good things for this Governor. She has worked to appoint a slew of many doctors to help push this through. Good start.
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She’s a great governor. I never knew about this problem or the bill until today. This crisis has to have several interventions, and this is a good start. I hope doctors and politicians are watching because Suboxone is misunderstood and sometimes seems more restricted than morphine. Good god. Americans need an education on drugs and street drugs.
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