EDITORIALS

Our view: State must make opioid abuse its top priority

Lancaster Eagle Gazette

The fact that Ohio is in the middle of an opioid addiction crisis is not in dispute.

With thousands of residents dying from these drugs every year, the epidemic has reached everywhere from urban cores to rural farm towns. 

Yet some recent proposals by our state legislature draw into question how seriously they take this problem.

A state Senate proposal would provide $176 million to help fight the problem, which sounds good on its surface. The problem is to get that money, the state would strip $35.3 million from cities who currently levy an income tax.

Taking money from communities who are on the front lines of the addiction crisis is wrongheaded. No amount of state programming can make up for the potential loss of firefighters or police officers whose response times are the difference between life and death for an overdose victim. 

Another state cut as communities work to fight addiction would be damaging.

The broader question of whether the state should essentially be providing bonuses to communities with an income tax is a fair one, but Heath Mayor Mark Johns said that money was promised when the state created its income tax to help offset the higher rate some residents would pay.

This cut is being proposed while the state sits on a $2 billion rainy-day fund, which Democrats and city leaders say should be tapped first.

In addition, Republican legislators in Ohio seem committed to eliminating the Medicaid expansion pushed by Gov. John Kasich. House and Senate plans differ in the details, but in reality, they would both eliminate the ability of many Ohioans to get access to health care. The expansion is estimated to have provided insurance for more than 700,000 in Ohio.

Medicaid has been labeled one of the best programs to fight the opioid crisis as it helped thousands of people in the state get access to mental health treatment, addiction counseling and other necessary medical needs. It is scary to think how bad Ohio's opioid crisis would be had Medicaid not been expanded, or where it will go should it be rescinded.

Yes, Medicaid expansion is not free, especially when there are questions as to whether the federal government will continue to pay for it under President Trump as it did under President Obama. 

But without a thorough, funded plan to battle opiate addiction more Ohioans are going to die, more families are going to be destroyed and more communities are going to be damaged. These deaths have a cost too.

Instead of trying to find a budget that works with a potential federal cut in health care, state legislators should be lobbying Congress to keep the program that provides medical access for so many in need or to develop a plan that doesn't cut them out.

Recovery works when people have access to it. We should be working to get more people that access, not less.