Obesity and mental health conditions are often undertreated, too. Some of the problems are specific to addiction. Some think of medications for addiction as merely replacing one drug with another, though experts reject that framing because the medications replace drugs that do harm with drugs that can help.Īll of these problems lead to the underuse of effective addiction treatments in the U.S., and so it is easier to get high than it is to get help. Many doctors say they lack the confidence to treat addiction because they don’t have enough training or access to specialists who can help guide them. Some doctors hold stigmatizing views about addiction and the patients afflicted by it, and refuse to provide treatment.
On top of America’s bureaucratic problems are more personal ones.
And through the country’s government-run health care system, officials made sure that the treatment was widely available and paid for. Rather than impose extra requirements for addiction care, French officials greatly relaxed rules during a crisis. Over four years, overdose deaths fell 79 percent.
In 1995, French officials deregulated buprenorphine so more doctors could prescribe it. At the same time, federal officials have failed to enforce laws requiring that insurers cover addiction treatment.Ī comparison to France, which faced its own opioid crisis in the 1980s and ’90s, is instructive. Until last year, doctors had to go through special training and obtain a waiver to be able to prescribe buprenorphine, the medication for opioid addiction. The federal government has sometimes exacerbated the problem. Patients have shared similar experiences. Addiction doctors have complained to me that they can spend hours of their workday on the phone with insurers asking them to pay for a medication, and sometimes insurers say no anyway. Treatment can be very expensive, and it’s often not covered by insurance. America’s addiction epidemic did not have to unfold this way, and it highlights the health care system’s continued resistance to providing addiction care.
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