DoGE should make ending the opioid crisis its legacy
As President Donald Trump trots the globe shopping for a new Air Force One and takes long-distance phone calls in a quest to end the “bloodbath” in Ukraine, a clear and present – and costly, in more ways than one – danger persists on his own country’s soil. A new, first-of-its-kind study from Avalere Health has found the annual average cost of each opioid use disorder (OUD) case in the US “is approximately $695,000 across all stakeholders analyzed.” Per the report’s executive summary: The costs to the federal government, state/local government, private businesses, and society are driven by lost productivity for employers ($438 billion), employees ($248 billion), and households ($73 billion).
