FRANKFORT, Ky. (Legal Newsline) – Kentucky Attorney General Andy Beshear announced April 21 that he joined a group of state attorneys general asking Congress and President Donald Trump to properly fund drug treatment in any plan to replace the Affordable Care Act (ACA).
According to Beshear’s office, the first replacement plan to repeal the ACA did not have a provision to properly fund drug treatment; instead, it would have cut federal funding for drug treatment by roughly $5.5 billion.
“In the midst of an ongoing public health crisis, the federal government cannot abandon this commitment to our communities,” the coalition said in a letter to Congress. “Our nation faces a drug epidemic that grows more difficult and dangerous by the hour. These drugs are causing record numbers of overdoses and are destabilizing whole communities. It is our belief that the reported numbers of overdose deaths are only a fraction of the real toll.”
The states involved in the coalition are Kentucky, California, Connecticut, District of Columbia, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Mississippi, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia and Washington.