Study: Mentally ill prescribed more opioids

June 26--NASHUA -- Repealing the Affordable Care Act could be disastrous for New Hampshire's opiate addiction problem, 2nd District Congresswoman Ann Kuster said Monday.

"This is critically important in New Hampshire, as we have gone from second in the nation in deaths from the opioid crisis and heroin to first for fentanyl. That's not what we want to be known as first in the nation for," she said during a press conference Monday.

Kuster's statements come as Washington legislators contemplate replacing the ACA with legislation that would stop the medicare expansion and eliminate the mental health care requirement -- tools that have helped people vulnerable to and suffering from an opiate addiction, officials say.

Meanwhile, a recent study found that people with mental illnesses are disproportionately prescribed opioids and are more likely to use them and overdose.

The study did not pinpoint a specific reason why people with mental illnesses are more frequently prescribed opiates. It does, however, note that this population is critical to understand when tackling opiate addiction.

"This new study is yet another reminder that, to combat the devastating opioid crisis, we must make mental health treatment affordable and accessible," U.S. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen said in a statement.

People with mental illnesses -- including anxiety, depression and other ailments -- make up approximately 16 percent of the U.S. population, but receive more than 50 percent of opiate prescriptions, according to the study published in the Journal of the American Board of Family Medicine.

"Such a relationship is particularly concerning because mental illness is also a prominent risk factor for overdose and other adverse opioid-related outcomes," the study noted.

The rates of opiate prescribing have been increasing over the last 10 to 15 years. There has been no noticeable decrease since the ACA was passed in 2010, though, said Dr. Brian Sites, who co-authored the study.

"If you look at the national data, you see escalating prescribing year after year after year. I would not say there's an absolutely correlation with the ACA. But hopefully, we're going to start seeing the trend going down as social policy gets devoted to offering alternatives, recognizing that we have a lot of carnage on the street," Sites said.

Eliminating medicaid and the mental illness requirement would inhibit treatment, Kuster and healthcare officials said.

The Affordable Care Act extended medicaid to households that earn around 140 percentage of the federal poverty level and decreased the number of uninsured people in New Hampshire by half. Many addicts who have sought treatment at the Nashua Fire Department's Safe Stations program have used medicaid, Chief Steven Galipeau said.

Annette Escalante of the Keystone Hall treatment center said that the healthcare system has long separated physical and mental illnesses, though they are often linked.

"If we do lose the medicaid funding that we receive, unfortunately, I believe the state will be going backwards," Escalante said.

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