O'Rourke is supportive of the use of tying reimbursement for health care services (on the provider side) to the use of clinical guidelines, thus tying accountability into treatment services delivered with people seeking care for substance use disorders. This means that addiction treatment programs would be held to the same standard as other health care agencies in being required to provide evidence-based care.
O'Rourke believes health care is a fundamental right, and recognizes that the federal government must play its part in offering healthcare to those who need it. Prioritizes enforcement of the federal parity law. Will work with Congress to enact Medicare for America as a means to ensure that every American can get the care they need, including mental health services or treatment for addiction. Medicare for America would fully cover mental health services and eliminate out of pocket costs for those with serious mental illnesses.
O'Rourke would allow individuals to complete a program through their treatment regimen and have their charges dismissed. This not only costs substantially less than prison, but leads to significantly greater health and behavioral outcomes.
O'Rourke states that he would use the authority of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and Center for Medicare / Medicaid Services (CMS) to shut down treatment centers that deceive or overbill patients, or use illegal lead generation practices.
O'Rourke says he believes in expanding access to buprenorphine and holding pharmaceutical executives accountable for knowingly and deliberately pushing for highly addictive opioid medications to be over-prescribed.
O'Rourke says that mental health and substance use disorders must be treated as a public health opportunity rather than a criminal justice concern, and that for far too many, mental health care and substance abuse treatment does not begin until after one interacts with the criminal justice system. He wants to shift the point of care by providing for pre-trial intervention for simple drug possession through community-based treatments that lead individuals toward rehabilitation.
O'Rourke also believes that regulation is needed to crack down on “product hopping,” which allows pharmaceutical companies to make minor changes to a drug (switching from a capsule formulation to a tablet) in order to generate a new period of exclusivity and then heavily promote it to convince physicians to switch to the more expensive drug without generic competition. He states that the would task the FTC with cracking down on this practice, in order to keep the price of medications like buprenorphine and methadone affordable for patients.
Beto wants to “Ensure access to treatment to enable long-term recovery, providing access to medication-based recovery and supporting at risk populations, including rural Americans, veterans, Native Americans, and incarcerated individuals.”
Beto “will enact Medicare for America, which will ensure universal, guaranteed, high-quality health care that includes mental health care. This will eliminate barriers to medication-assisted recovery, including coverage by insurance of FDA-approved maintenance medications, also referred to as medication-assisted recovery, including buprenorphine, methadone and Suboxone. He would also allow clinicians to prescribe buprenorphine without having to undergo an invasive process. Clinicians are currently required to undergo training, receive an additional license, and submit patient records to the DEA.”
“Improve the quality and reduce the cost of treatment by tackling abusive practices of the substance use disorder treatment industry. There is currently no entity within the federal government regulating facilities that oversee treatment for substance use disorder, and much of the U.S. substance use disorder treatment industry does not provide evidence-based, effective care consistent with long-term recovery. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has over 4,000 quality measures, but there are zero for substance use and opioid use disorder programs.”
Read More
Beto O’Rourke on the Record about Mental Health and Addiction
Mental Health for US
Watch: Beto talks solutions to the opioid crisis at the Iowa Harm Reduction Coalition
October 24, 2019
Beto’s Plan to Address Substance Use Disorders and the Opioid Epidemic
Medium | October 24, 2019 | Beto O’Rourke
