Medicaid cuts could mean more deaths from drug overdoses: NPR

A coalition of search experts said that more than 300 doctors, workers and researchers from the reduction in damage have signed a letter that was submitted to the congress late Monday if the United States reduces the financing of programs that help the municipalities fight against the overdose of drugs.

“[W]In the most important agencies, “said the letter and pointed out suggestions in the Budget of the White House for 2026, the billions of dollars from the centers for the control and prevention of diseases, the administration of drug abuse and psychiatric services as well as other programs.

In the letter that was sent to Democratic and Republican leaders, it found that the fatal overdoses have decreased by around 26 percent compared to the previous year in 2024, according to the latest federal data of the CDC. This is the greatest one -year -old of death since the start of the opioid crisis in the nineties.

“The reduction in deaths with overdosing that we saw in 2024 was the result of ongoing and increasing financial investments,” the letter said. “Now is not the time to reduce these investments.”

The efforts that legislators for lobby were organized partly by lawyer Chad Sabora, an activist for new addiction and former drug users in St. Louis, to avoid the letter. He said the addiction community was afraid of the size of the spending cuts proposed by the White House.

“This would basically implode the current structure that addiction the addiction as a problem of public health,” said Sabora. “This would reverse what worked.”

President Trump was partly on a promise to “finish” the fentanyl crisis, which has had a fatal increase in overdoses in the past decade. NPR asked officials from the White House to comment on how the proposed spending cuts could influence the country's fentanyl and drug overdose reaction. They didn't answer.

The deaths of drug overdoses still claim around 82,000 lives in the United States every 12 months, as can be seen from the latest available CDC data from November 2024.

This rate of drug death remains much higher than in other countries, but represents a steep decline of a peak of around 114,664 deaths in a period of 12 months recorded in August 2023.

Experts warned addiction restoration programs in rural areas and poor urban districts could be hit particularly hard if the legislator could follow the proposed budget of the Trump government. There is also concern that research efforts are pursued New drugs for synthetic roads sold in American communities could also be defused. “Everything will basically make a guessing game,” said Sabora.

This is done because experts for drug policy, hospitals and recovery clinics also occur on possible cuts in Medicaid Financing. As part of the Affordable Care Act, Medicaid quickly expanded and now offers a large part of the insurance cover in the USA for people looking for medical treatment for addiction.

“It is a scary time. We are afraid of the possibility of what could happen if Medicaid is significantly reduced,” said Dr. Stephen Taylor from the American Society of Addiction Medicine. “We hope that the political decision -makers and people who have control over things in order not to make any changes that we know that they would not falsify the people we take care of.”

A preliminary estimate created by the Congress budget, which was published by democratic legislators on Sunday, showed that the Medicaid cuts proposed by the Republicans would reduce the number of low Americans covered by health insurance by “at least 8.6 million in 2034”. It is not clear how many affected people look after addiction.