Democratic presidential candidate John Delaney believes that pharmaceutical companies responsible for the opioid crisis should be fined out of business and plans to push for such an outcome if elected to the White House.
Delaney, a former Maryland congressman told the Washington Examiner that companies who knew how addictive opioids were and continued to push them anyway should face fines and criminal charges.
“There should be responsibility and accountability,” he said as he prepared to release a wide-ranging plan Tuesday to combat the crisis.
Delaney is campaigning this week in New Hampshire, which has one of the highest rates of opioid overdose deaths in the U.S. The problem has snowballed nationally, contributing to a drug overdose death toll of more than 70,000 in 2017.
The crisis was fueled by doctors over-prescribing painkillers because they mistakenly believed they weren’t addictive. Patients who got hooked on the painkillers turned to heroin, a cheaper, more available alternative that has a similar effect on the brain. Heroin increasingly has been mixed with illicit fentanyl, which is even more deadly.
Though some companies, such as Purdue Pharma, have settled for millions of dollars over the years, lawmakers have called for further accountability because drugmakers still made billions of dollars in profits.
Purdue and other opioid manufacturers are facing a cascade of new lawsuits from cities and states who say the companies have downplayed the drugs’ risk of addiction. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who is also vying for the Democratic nomination, has a bill that would fine companies liable for the opioid epidemic $7.8 billion.
When asked about the fairness of that fine, Delaney replied, “I think the companies should go out of business.”
He expressed frustration that the opioid crisis hadn’t emerged on the debate stage last week.
“I was trying to bring it up but couldn’t get a word in edgewise … The scale of this is extraordinary and it still isn’t really talked about with the prominence it deserves,” he said.
President Trump has declared the opioid crisis a “public health emergency” but not a “national emergency,” and Delaney said that if elected he believes the emergency declaration should be considered.
“I think anything a president can do by executive order they should do with opioids,” he said.
The plan he unveiled Tuesday would require patients to sign a consent form at the doctor’s office saying they understand how addictive opioids are. It would boost medical research into treatments for pain and train more mental health providers.
It would expand programs for women who are using opioids while pregnant and for their babies who were exposed to the drugs in the womb. The plan would extend to people who are incarcerated.
Delaney was the first Democrat to enter the presidential race in 2017 and has made headlines in recent weeks for criticizing the healthcare plans supported by more left-leaning members of his party. Several candidates running for office support a fully government-funded healthcare system that would eliminate private health insurance, known as the Medicare for All Act.
Delaney, who was the co-founder of the money lender company Health Care Financial Partners, has warned that such a system would cause hospitals to close and reduce access to care.
He said during his interview that the situation in New Hampshire underscores why a fully government-financed healthcare system would be problematic. The Medicaid system there doesn’t provide enough reimbursement for addiction, leaving patients unable to access care, he said.
His healthcare plan would create a universal coverage option but not outlaw private insurance. It would require insurers to cover nonopioid painkillers and physical therapy, as well as provide better coverage for medications that help stave off the pangs of withdrawal. Part of the funding for states to fight the crisis would come from a 2-cent tax on prescription painkillers.
Early data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention suggest that in 2018 deaths from opioids will fall for the first time since 1990, but too soon for experts to tell whether the decline will continue for the long term.
“I think in general the actions should have been sooner,” Delaney said. “This was a crisis that was occurring before it got on the radar of the American people.”
Congress and the Trump administration have acted to reverse the surge of deaths from opioids, passing a bill in 2018 that included $8.5 billion in funding for communities.
Though it had broad bipartisan support, some Democrats have said they would like to pour much more funding into the fight. The plan of Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, another Democratic presidential candidate, includes $100 billion over a decade, a figure Delaney said sounded appropriate but could be even higher.
“I think we have to spend the money that we need to spend until we overcome it … I think the real question is what do we need to do to get his under control?” he said.
