Dr. Siegel: ‘The Opioid Epidemic Is Tied to Medicaid as an Enabler’

EXCERPT:

SIEGEL: "In states that have the Medicaid expansion, emergency room visits are up by 9 percent. Hospitals like that because patients that used to be uninsured now have their Medicaid card. But they are flocking into the ERs to get services they don’t often need. Did you know, Brian, that 15 percent of Medicaid patients are prescribed an opioid every year? Now, that’s the doctor’s fault for overprescribing. But Medicaid allows doctors to overprescribe and that’s one of the secret stories that we’re breaking right now, is that the opioid epidemic is tied to Medicaid as an enabler. Doctors are the problem. Medicaid is enabling it."