Illinois has sent an application to the federal government to add more addiction treatment and overdose coverage for people who are enrolled in Obamacare plans.
The proposal will take effect in 2020 if it is approved by officials at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. The application would add to the “essential health benefits” that must be covered by benchmark health insurance plans.
Benefits would include covering prescriptions for Narcan, a nasal spray that reverses an opioid overdose, when people are prescribed a certain amount of opioid painkillers; as well as coverage for alternative treatments for chronic pain that are non-addictive. It would limit the amount of prescription opioids doctors can prescribe to seven days and would cover telepsychiatry to treat addiction and mental health disorders.
Adding the benefits will cost Obamacare enrollees, who number roughly 300,000, about 30 cents more per month in premiums, according to the Chicago Tribune. People who receive subsidies to pay for coverage would not feel the increase, which would effectively be absorbed by federal taxpayers.
The changes are primarily geared at helping to roll back the scourge of addiction and deaths from opioids that are occurring in the state, which mirrors trends around the country. Preliminary data from the state’s Department of Public Health shows that 2,111 people died from an opioid overdose in Illinois in 2017.
