The Trump administration has approved Medicaid waivers in Utah and New Jersey that their governors say will expand access to treatment for residents with opioid addiction.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services also announced Wednesday that it would allow states to design other proposals that would help their residents get access to treatment for opioid and other drug addictions. The move is in response to President Trump last week directing the health secretary to declare the opioid epidemic a “public health emergency.”
“This new demonstration policy comes as a direct result of the president’s commitment to address the opioid crisis and ensure states have immediate relief and flexibility,” said Seema Verma, administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. “Previous policies ignored the growing urgency of the national opioid epidemic and instead put onerous requirements on states that ultimately prevented individuals from accessing these needed services. The Trump administration’s approach reflects the pressing nature of the issues states are facing on the ground.”
Under Medicaid, states are allowed to seek waivers so that they can spend funds in ways other than the program specifies, because a large part of Medicaid funding comes from the federal government. The Trump administration has encouraged states to use the waivers to tackle the opioid epidemic.
New Jersey’s waiver will allow Medicaid funds to go toward residential treatment, management of withdrawal symptoms, medication that helps people with opioid addictions, and toward providers who help manage people’s various medical and other needs. New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said the waiver would allow “thousands more” in the state receive access to treatment.
Christie leads Trump’s opioid commission, which is expected to release a report Wednesday with additional recommendations for how the federal government can tackle the issue. The epidemic involves deaths from opioid overdoses, including heroin or prescription painkillers. Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show that at least 33,000 opioid overdose deaths occurred in 2015.
The Utah waiver helps people who have an opioid addiction and are homeless or in prison or jail. It is expected to expand treatment to as many as 6,000 Utah residents.
Utah Gov. Gary Herbert praised the Trump administration for allowing the state to address opioid abuse in the state’s homeless population.
“I’ve always maintained the role of the federal government should be to provide states with the flexibility to be innovative in how they operate their Medicaid programs,” he said. “Nobody knows how to address the unique challenges we face as a state better than we do.”
Several facilities as a result of the waiver are planning to add more beds to help treat people with addictions, because under previous rules they were limited to no more than 16 beds to receive Medicaid funds. The rule, which dates to 1965 and was intended to promote the expansion of smaller community-based substance abuse treatment centers, has contributed to long wait lists for treatment. Other states have sought similar permission to alter it.
