LePage wants Mainers repeatedly revived by Narcan to pay for it

[jpak]

Source: Bangor Daily News

AUGUSTA, Maine — Gov. Paul LePage wants to force communities to charge people who repeatedly overdose and are given an opioid antidote — and penalize cities, towns and counties that don’t pursue the money.

LePage submitted a governor’s bill, LD 1558, on Tuesday that requires municipalities and counties to recover the cost of naloxone hydrochloride from repeat users, and it comes with a $1,000 fine per incident for communities that don’t.

Bangor area doctors and advocates said the bill would make it harder to stop the state’s drug epidemic — which last year killed more than one person a day.

“My comment is to ask whether we will make the same requirement of people with other chronic diseases,” Dr. Noah Nesin, Penobscot Community Health Care vice president of medical affairs, said Tuesday after reading the proposed bill. “If the answer is no, then the bill is simply an attempt to codify our society’s bias about addiction into law.”

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Read more: http://bangordailynews.com/2017/05/04/politics/lepage-wants-mainers-repeatedly-revived-by-narcan-to-pay-for-it/

[Eugene]

1. Ugh. What an evil, vindictive mother****er.

This is low even by LePuke's standards.

[Itchinjim]

2. Repeated? I really have no problem with this.

If you're using opiates you've got a problem. If you OD you've got a huge problem and you should get help with your addiction. If you OD again, then why should the taxpayers be put in the position of enablers of your addiction? Its not like the paramedics are going to make you pay for it up front.
And trust me, I hate agreeing with LePage on anything.

[unblock]

7. speaking as a former emt who repeatedly helped many people "repeatedly"

get off your fucking false moralistic high horse and show some sympathy for people who are ill.


how about all those people i helped with insulin problems? some of them forget or take a chance with a cookie and they end up needing an ambulance. again.

should we charge them? fuckers keep eating, right?


how about all those people with breathing difficulties from smoking all those years. saw some of the same people again and again.

should we charge them? fuckers keep trying to breathe, right?


i know, i know, "oh but blah blah drugs they should know better blah blah blah!"

horseshit! addiction is an illness and the medical profession should not be in the business of making moralistic judgments about people's actions. encourage them to get in a program? sure. but know this: *addiction is a trap* it alters your brain, it affects your thinking. it's not so simple to just say no, it's not so simple to get one warning and then say, hey, i need to alter my life. it just doesn't work that way.

[Vinnie From Indy]

8. +1

Could not agree more! Cheers!

[Itchinjim]

11. Heroin is the same as insulin. Right.

Trust me, i know a thing or two about addiction and enabling addicts does not help them get the help they need.
Now scuse me while I take my "Fucking moral high horse" for a little trot around the pasture.

[Dr Hobbitstein]

12. Neither does letting them die because they can't pay for Narcan. nt

[Itchinjim]

14. Im pretty sure they wont have to pay before the Narcan is applied

I have no problem with an addict who is repeatedly revived paying for the cost of the Narcan after the fact.

[Dr Hobbitstein]

16. Then you don't understand Republican's health care plans. nt

[ehrnst]

23. Pay - with what? A pound of flesh?

I believe that the majority of the people OD'ing are bottoming out, and that includes financially.

[unblock]

13. and you think charging them a stupid fee for narcan is going to cure them of their addiction?

very empathetic of you to reduce saving someone's life to "enabling" them, but, let's think through this logic here:

near-death experience and ambulance call and narcan number one does not cure the patient's addiction.
this entire scenario relates only to people who "repeatedly" need narcan.

near-death experience and ambulance call and narcan number two (at least) does not cure the patient's addiction.

bill for narcan. "oh, fuck, now i've hit bottom, now i'm committed to a treatment program and i'll stick to it, all because of that bill! wow, why oh why didn't anyone send me a nuisance bill ages ago!"


this is horseshit, like taking away voting rights for felons. there's no fucking good reason for it and a whole bunch of bad reasons.
stupid, stupid, stupid, mean-spirited idea.


oh, and just to be clear, i said "fucking *false* moralistic high horse". your view is not a moral one imho. being mean to people you've decided to look down upon is not a good basis for a moral code.

[Itchinjim]

15. Jesus Christ dude, I simply have a different opinion than you.

And you for some reason having a very hard time dealing with it.
Goddamn, go back to bed or something.

[unblock]

18. sorry, you're right. passionate defense of people in need has no place on a democratic chat board.

[Itchinjim]

19. Ok. You win.

Your passionate defense of people in need has swayed me to your side.
Thanks for showing me that calm reasonable discussions of different opinions have no place on Democratic discussion board.
Maybe next you can teach me how to use all CAP LOCKS to get my point accross.
Thanks agian,
Jimbo and his horse.

[unblock]

21. hey, how did you make the letters big in "cap locks"?

[Grins]

17. It's a slippery slope...

It's a slippery slope to be on when someone gets to decide who gets what, for what, and how. It sounds so right, but when applied in practice...? And what happens if someone (i.e., an Evangelical Republican moral scold) decides that should apply to other situations not envisioned in the original...? A slippery slope.

[ehrnst]

22. +1000 (nt)

[IronLionZion]

3. How much?

The article says they sell it to the police for $37.50 a dose. But I imagine they would charge the Mainer more as punishment?

Why not have mandatory enrollment in treatment of addiction plus Narcotics Anonymous?

And some punishment for the big pharma companies that encouraged opioid addiction through blatant lies in the first place?

When will he be out of office?

[bora13]

4. weird solution from a weird gov

depending on the cost, I can see addicts
not wanting to pay and saying f it and dying anyway.

though I can't imagine that paying for the original opiate drug is much cheaper on the street.

[logosoco]

5. I'm not sure if I really have a problem with this.

Unless the city charges way more than what it costs them.

People transported to a hospital have to pay for an ambulance. (At least in my neck of the woods and my aunt who fell and they took her to the hospital. She got a $500 charge for that and she has paid taxes for a good many years!)

[unblock]

9. as the dr. says in the op, if it's being applied uniformly for all types of cases, it's ok.

but to single out narcan/opiate overdose cases for a special charge, that's where the problem is.

it's ok if they charge everyone for the ambulance ride, or charge diabetics for insulin, etc.

i worked for an all-volunteer squad, we got limited funding from the town but relied heavily on donations.
ambulance rides were free, but we always followed up with a request for a donation, and many people were grateful for the help and gave something, even if it was only $5.

[bucolic_frolic]

6. A sad hateful blob of a human soul

Forcing drug users to consider financial revival penalties is going to be a heavy lift.

These folks are not too oriented to thinking about long term consequences of their actions.

This is another removal of social and medical support services.

Why have community if we're all in it for ourselves?

LePage is totally about self-interest and money, from clear-cutting forests and ending
National Monuments to examples such as this.

[inwiththenew]

10. Blood from a turnip

How much money do you think someone who habitual overdoses on heroin really has?

[Sunlei]

20. How about the opioid Corporation and the Fentinal (elephant trank.) Corporations pay out of their

fabulous fat profits pockets.