Opioid epidemic cost the U.S. half a trillion dollars in 2015--six times higher than in 2013 - Entrepreneur Generations

Council of Economic Advisers graph

The opioid epidemic cost the United States economy more than $504 billion in 2015, according to a new analysis from the White House's Council of Economic Advisers. That's almost 3 percent of the nation's gross domestic product that year, and is more than six times higher than the $79.9 billion a study estimated that it cost in 2013.

The CEA identifies a few reasons for the increased cost: the epidemic has grown much more severe in recent years, and this study includes the economic impact of illicit opioid use such as heroin; previous estimates only counted prescription opioid abuse. "Most notably, however, the CEA analysis is higher because, first, previous studies underestimated the economic cost of the loss of life from this epidemic, and second, those previous estimates did not account for the underreporting of opioid deaths," Quinn Lisbon reports for Route Fifty.

President Trump declared the opioid epidemic a national public health emergency in October, but did not allocate any additional funding to the effort. The declaration gives agencies more flexibility in dealing with the epidemic and allows the government to negotiate lower prices for first-response overdose drug naloxone (sold under the brand name Narcan).

from The Rural Blog http://ift.tt/2zch38x Opioid epidemic cost the U.S. half a trillion dollars in 2015--six times higher than in 2013 - Entrepreneur Generations

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