(Pharma family got filthy rich(er)
Major Update on the story following this: Purdue Pharma files for bankruptcy – story from
Washington Post.
Key Highlights:
More than
200,000 people have died of prescription opioid overdoses since 1999.
Another
200,000 have died from overdoses attributed to heroin and illegally obtained
fentanyl.
By 2007, the company and three top executives — none of them Sackler family members —
pleaded guilty to federal charges of misleading regulators, doctors, and
patients about the highly addictive nature of the drug.
The company paid more than $600 million in fines and
other payments.
Yet, Purdue Pharma,
under the family’s tight control, continued to aggressively market
OxyContin and kept fueling the growing epidemic of narcotic addiction. (That according to a raft of litigation filed against the company).
Lawsuits also are pending against generic oxycodone
manufacturers, distributors, and retail pharmacy chains.
As sales
continued into the billions of dollars, the family board members who controlled
the company began transferring big chunks of money out of the firm beginning in
2008, according to multiple state lawsuits.
“Between 2008 and 2018, they directed Purdue
to make nearly $11 billion in total distributions (including tax distributions)
to partnered companies, foreign entities, and ultimately to trusts established
for the benefit of the Sackler families.” (In recently unsealed portions of a lawsuit filed this year by Oregon’s
AG).
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Original Post Starts Here:
Introduction: What Repealing the ACA Would Mean for Opioid Treatment?
In a
rational world, records of success would inspire enthusiasm and support for the
Medicaid expansion ― not just from Democrats, who have always believed in
government-sponsored health care, but also from Republicans, who have
proclaimed over and over again their determination to stop the opioid epidemic.
Just last
week, Trump boasted that his administration “is determined to use every resource at our disposal to smash the grip
of addiction.”
Trump was
speaking at a press conference to announce $2 billion in new grants to state
and local agencies. The money, which came from a bipartisan bill that Congress
passed and Trump signed last year, is meant to make the kind of treatment they
offer at addiction program (one good example): the Western Wayne Family Health Centers (in MI), a group of
federally funded clinics scattered across the lower-income suburbs of Detroit.
Western
Wayne even more widely available than it is now. It will almost certainly help
a lot of people, and it’s a credit to its sponsor’s ― most of whom, regardless
of party, presumably feel genuine compassion for their constituents battling
substance abuse.
But Trump
and his allies are also in the middle of a campaign to undermine the Medicaid
expansion, as part of their war on Obama’s signature policy achievement ― an effort
that’s been one of the party’s defining crusades since the ACA became law.
Trump includes work requirements that reduce enrollment largely by making
it more complicated to establish eligibility for the program. It also includes
efforts to change Medicaid’s funding scheme so that the federal government would provide
states with fixed, presumably smaller contributions toward the program’s cost.
“So, they act like they are doing great work, but what they are doing is gutting
the system that actually works,” said Keith
Humphreys, professor at Stanford University.
Humphreys (who also worked in the
Obama administration) added: “When Trump or the
Congress allocates grant money ― ‘Here’s a billion or two billion in grants’ ―
and then cuts Medicaid or destabilizes the exchanges, they’re actually cutting
money for addiction treatment. You
can act like you are doing great work, but what you are doing is gutting the
system.”
Then, of
course, there is the effort to repeal the ACA altogether ―
either through the judiciary, where a new lawsuit challenging the law’s constitutionality is awaiting
a ruling from a federal appeals court, or through Congress, where GOP leaders
have made clear they will make another attempt at repeal if the 2020 election gives them
full control of the government again.
If
successful, such efforts would have a devastating effect on the fight against
the opioid epidemic.
In 2017, Richard
Frank and Sherry Glied, economists who also served in the Obama
administration, produced an estimate of what repeal of the ACA would mean for opioid
treatment. They determined that “About
2.8 million Americans with a substance use disorder, of whom about 222,000 have
an opioid disorder, would lose some or all of their insurance coverage.”
Overall,
they said repealing ACA would take away $5.5 billion a year from treatment of
people with mental health and substance abuse disorders.
Frank, now a
professor at Harvard, told Huff Post that the impact would be even more
dramatic because since 2017, more states have expanded Medicaid and that would
vanish if the ACA as Trump wants and the GOP has tried to do since 2010 also vanishes.
As German Lopez, a journalist who has chronicled the
epidemic for Vox, warned last year, “States
would end up more vulnerable not just to the current overdose crisis but the
next one as well.”
Which is not
to say repeal will happen. The new lawsuit would have to prevail at the Supreme
Court, which has twice declined opportunities to throw out the ACA, and a new law would require both Trump’s reelection and a Republican rout
in the House, which would be hard for the GOP to pull off if current polling is
correct.
But there’s
no way to be sure, and in the meantime, Republican policies may already be
having an effect on Medicaid enrollment. Just this week, the Census Bureau
reported that the number of Americans without health insurance has risen for the first time since the ACA became law
― mostly because the number of people with Medicaid has declined.
Whether or
not that’s a direct byproduct of the Trump administration’s policy changes,
it’s a reminder that the futures of people with substance abuse disorders
depend not only on what happens in their homes and communities, but also on
what happens in Washington.
I note: What is Trump’s and *Limbaugh’s
position on the
Sackler family billions scam to hide and then transfer billions from their
Purdue Pharma profits into their own pockets.
They are at the center of the
opioid and other addictive drug crisis story
here from ABC News.
§ The Sacklers are one
of the richest families in the US.
§ The family's estimated $13 billion fortune comes primarily from
sales of the controversial prescription painkiller, OxyContin that according to
Forbes.
§ The family is known for its
philanthropic endeavors, though many institutions, including museums and
universities, have recently
cut ties with the Sacklers.
On August
27, 2019, NBC News reported that Purdue
Pharma was offering to settle 2,000 lawsuits against the company for
$10 billion to $12 billion, but the company still denies any wrongdoing.
*Limbaugh is a 1st
class hypocrite, cite: Before his own problems became public, Limbaugh had decried drug use and
abuse and mocked President Clinton for saying he had not inhaled when he tried
marijuana. He often made the case that drug crimes deserve punishment.
He said in part on his failed TV show: “Drug use, some might say, is destroying this
country. And we have laws against selling drugs, pushing drugs, using drugs,
importing drugs. ... And so if people are violating the law by doing drugs,
they ought to be accused and they ought to be convicted and they ought to be
sent up.” (October 5, 1995).
My 2 cents:
I don’t know the outcome of any legal proceeding against the Sacklers, but as Limbaugh
said: “They out to be sent up.” But,
they won’t – big money will help them prevent that. Unless they turn out to be
like Bernie Madoff?
Time will
tell – thanks for stopping by.
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