Penn State researchers estimate at least $130 billion in state opioid costs for treatment and related expenses - Entrepreneur Generations

A team of 20 researchers at Pennsylvania State University has produced the country’s first “comprehensive tally of state opioid costs” with an aim to better understand the financial burden to state governments in four areas: Medicaid, tax revenue, criminal justice and child care.

“Collectively our studies tallied about $85 billion in estimated financial costs to state budgets during the periods identified in each one. After extrapolating that to cover costs through 2018, we think the total comes to at least about $130 billion, with an ongoing bill of $6 billion to $10 billion every year,” the team’s five lead researchers wrote," the lead researchers wrote in a summary for The Conversation.

“Our estimates also provide a benchmark states can use in litigation as they seek to recoup these costs to help cover the ongoing expenses associated with containing and ending the epidemic – and hint at why so many opioid manufacturers are mulling bankruptcy.”

By far, the largest expense to state governments is through Medicaid.

“Our team crunched the data from 17 states’ Medicaid claims databases and then extrapolated the data to make national-level estimates. We estimate that overall, state Medicaid programs spent at least $72 billion due to opioid misuse from 1999 to 2013, the most recent year with available data.

“Based on an estimate of Medicaid costs of $8.4 billion in 2013, we estimate states likely spent an additional $40 billion since then, bringing the total bill to at least $112 billion.”

States also take a financial hit through reduced tax revenue.

“We estimate that states may have lost nearly $12 billion in tax revenue from 2000 to 2016 due to the effect of opioid misuse on individuals’ ability to work. Ongoing costs are about $700 million a year, bringing an estimated total through 2018 to over $13 billion.”

Costs associated with criminal justice were more difficult to determine.

“Due to the difficulty of obtaining reliable data, our team focused on Pennsylvania. We estimate that, from 2007 to 2016, the opioid crisis cost the criminal justice system in the state $526 million.”

The research team estimated opioid misuse “may be associated with $2.8 billion in costs to the child welfare system across all states from 2011 to 2016.”

There’s also a huge cost to child welfare systems and special education programs from babies born to mothers using opioids.

“A very rough estimate of the nationwide costs would be in the ballpark of at least $50 million per year.”

from The Rural Blog https://ift.tt/2Kj4aQz Penn State researchers estimate at least $130 billion in state opioid costs for treatment and related expenses - Entrepreneur Generations

Posted by Entrepreneur Generations

Tweet