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The opioid epidemic cost the federal government $ 26 billion in lost tax revenue between 2000 and 2016, and the state governments $ 11.8 billion, according to a new study published in Medical care.
The study combines previous research and surveys, as well as existing empirical tools for measuring tax revenues, to calculate the amount of revenue and sales tax losses resulting from even temporary the labor market due to opioid abuse, substance abuse, or overdose.
Different states have been affected differently, from the loss of California tax revenues to $ 843 million, to the loss of $ 0 from Alaska to New Hampshire (because they have no sales taxes). or income relevant to the study). In general, the most populous states with the highest tax rates were the most affected, as were the states most affected by the opioid crisis.
The study has some limitations. On the one hand, these are estimates; they may miss some of the variables that may affect the projections. Researchers also rely on the National Survey of Drug Use and Health to calculate the effects of opioid abuse, but it is known that this survey underestimates the prevalence of opioid abuse. 39, total abuse and dependence.
Nevertheless, the study offers insight into the financial consequences of the opioid crisis. Over the years, we have already heard many stories about human impact: in 2017 alone, more than 70,000 deaths were linked to drug overdoses and most of these deaths were related to opioids. It means lost friends, family and peers. But the new study shows that the overdose crisis is also affecting community budgets.
Previous studies have estimated the overall economic impact of the opioid epidemic, beyond tax revenues alone. A 2016 study, also in Medical care, quantifying the total economic burden of overdose, opioid abuse and prescription addiction to $ 78.5 billion in 2013. A report released in 2017 by Altarum, a research organization on health care, estimates more than $ 95 billion the cost of the opioid epidemic for 2016.
However, an analysis conducted by the White House in 2017 estimated the cost of the opioid epidemic at $ 504 billion in 2015. Contrary to previous reports, the Council of Economic Advisers of the White House Is looking not only at the direct costs, such as health expenses and the loss of potential income, but also the full value of all the activities to which people could contribute if they did not die prematurely. This gave the White House a much broader – and much higher – estimate of total costs.
The estimates are relevant both for measuring the impact of the opioid crisis and for putting potential solutions into context. Experts have long said that the federal government should spend tens of billions of dollars to deal with the crisis by funding treatment, prevention and harm reduction efforts. But while Congress has allocated billions and billions of dollars of funding here and there, it has not yet invested tens of billions, even 100 billion dollars over 10 years, as confirmed Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), presidential candidate. proposed – that experts say is necessary. Thus, the epidemic of opioids continues, killing tens of thousands of Americans every year.
The last Medical care The study is particularly relevant here, showing that a taxpayer-funded response of tens of billions could have been profitable. And this is for the period 2000 to 2016, when the opioid crisis was not as serious as today.
The study could also help guide ongoing prosecutions against manufacturers and distributors of opioids. The dispute seeks to punish pharmaceutical companies for their role in flooding dangerous and addictive drugs in communities and to recover some of the costs of the crisis.
"It is essential to estimate the damage closely related to opioid use to determine which funds the states, and potentially the federal government, could recover in the event of litigation, "wrote Joel Segel, Yunfeng Shi, John Moran and Dennis Scanlon. "The estimates also have implications for public health because damages to state governments or the federal government could potentially be allocated to opioid treatment and prevention efforts."
So now we have the numbers. It remains to be seen whether the government representatives will act.
To learn more about solutions to the opioid epidemic, read the articles from Vox's hub.
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