Pain News Network: Medicaid Expansion Did Not Fuel Opioid Crisis

“A new study is debunking claims that increased access to healthcare and pain management helped to fuel the opioid crisis. If anything, the opposite appears to be the case. The study, published in the Journal of General Internal Medicine, found that early Medicaid expansions in Arizona, Maine and New York may have led to lower overdose rates in those states. “These findings suggest that Medicaid expansions were unlikely to have contributed to the subsequent rise in drug overdose deaths, and may even have been protective,” said lead author Atheendar Venkataramani, MD, PhD, an assistant professor of Medical Ethics and Health Policy at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania.” Read more at Pain News Network