Clinton backs Manchin plan to tax opioids
http://www.cnn.com/2016/05/03/politics/hillary-clinton-west-virginia-opioids/index.html
I won’t speculate who will benefit from this tax.. but.. monies charged to a manufacturer or importer.. guess who that tax is going to be passed along to. And who will the tax monies be passed out to ? Those who run “treatment centers”.. like those run by some infamous anti-opiate people/groups and those that run Suboxone clinics ? Of course, Manchin is not up for re-election until 2018… I guess he is hoping that the voters will forget about this “little issue”. If Clinton gets to be the Democratic candidate and is elected President… we know where she stands on this issue if Congress puts such a bill on her desk. The Chronic Pain Community had better get “ALL HANDS ON DECK” on this issue. You DO NOTHING… you GET NOTHING ….
Manchin, whose state is dealing with the highest rate of drug overdose deaths in the country, proposed earlier this year a tax of “1 cent on each milligram of active opioid ingredient in a prescription pain pill to be paid by the manufacturer or importer.”
During a roundtable on opiod addiction here Tuesday morning, Clinton embraced the idea.
“I started looking, I said, ‘You know what, we’ve got an alcohol tax on alcohol, we have a tobacco tax.’ So I said, ‘Why don’t we have a one penny per milligram for every manufactured pharmaceutical that manufactures any opiates, just opiates?” Manchin said.
Clinton jumped in, adding: “Great idea. That’s a great idea, Joe. That’s a great idea.”
Manchin said the plan would raise up to $2 billion a year in money that would be required to go into treatment centers for opiod addiction.
Clinton said plans like that were “one of the reasons why I am such an admirer of Sen. Manchin.”
Manchin, whose state has grown more conservative in recent years, has forcefully backed Clinton during her trip through West Virginia despite backlash to her visit. A voter even told Manchin on Monday that he felt the senator was hurt by supporting Clinton.
Clinton rolled out a $10 billion plan in September 2014 to combat opioid addiction and drug treatment, an issue the candidate admits she didn’t realize was so important to people until she began campaigning for president in 2014.
That issue is especially important in West Virginia, a state where Democrats will choose between Clinton and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders next Tuesday.
West Virginia has the highest number of drug overdose deaths in the United States at 33.5 per 100,000 people, according to a 2015 study by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
The funds raised from the plan to tax opioids be used to “expand access to substance abuse treatment” and would be distributed to states as part of a drug prevention block grant program, according to Manchin’s office.
The plan would also offer a rebate for “opioids prescribed for cancer-related pain and hospice patients and an exemption for opioids used as part of medically assisted treatment.”
Clinton was in West Virginia as part of a two-day swing through Appalachia, with stops in Kentucky and Ohio. The trip has taken Clinton through the heart of Donald Trump’s territory, including Mingo County, West Virginia, where Clinton was met with a chorus of chants and boos during a tense roundtable about coal jobs on Monday.
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I am from WV and voted for Manchin, attended one of his fundraisers and even donated to him but never again. This is a kick in the teeth of every American that suffers from Chronic Pain, to take more money out of my wallet to pay for drug abusers. This fool is equating a medical condition with smoking and drinking, which is despicable. The last time I checked you don’t get a prescription from the doctor to go get a fifth of Gin or and pack of cigarettes, nor do you need those items to survive. I deal with pain each and every day of my life and to have Manchin make a mockery of it is the last straw. I already have the hassle of having to go to my doctor each month to get a written prescription, which my doctor has informed me can not even be mailed to me, because the medication I am on was moved from Schedule III to Schedule II. Now to be taxed for being ill, sounds like an idea from someone that is demented. There has been a drug problem in America since before Crack but now our politicians want to put the burden of this mess on the people that are not part of the problem. Being on drugs is a luxury I could not afford, yet these junkies act as if they are destitute. Broke people don’t have a drug habit, so if you can afford to get high, then you can afford to pay for your own treatment.
We will continue to see new profit opportunities and newly created cookie jars for government to reach their grimy little fingers into. Chronic pain patients be damned.
I just love the Senator’s rationale…tobacco products are taxed…alcohol is taxed…let’s tax opioid pain medications in the same way. In case all ya’ll have forgotten, those taxes on tobacco and alcohol used to be commonly referred to as “Sin Taxes”. So now the good senator is equating the only modality, the only truly effective class of medicine for many, many chronic pain patients aka, opioid-based pain medications as a discretionary, sinful luxury, worthy of taxation.
Again we see this pernicious mindset, a mindset that opioid-based medications aren’t really medicines. No, they’re recreational drugs and the people using them aren’t really in pain. No, they’re using these recreationally like people who drink alcohol and smoke or chew tobacco. Yep, my life has been a non-stop freakin’ party every day and every night since I was diagnosed with Fibromyalgia Syndrome over twenty years ago. Candidate Clinton is just swooning over the senator’s hot, new idea. Frankly, if it’s “hot stuff” that these two like so much, then I can suggest a really hot place that both of these two politicians can go to for even presuming to corral legitimate medications for legitimate pain sufferers in with discretionary items that are subject to “Sin Taxes”.
She has no interest in helping the chronic pain community. She has no empathy for the people who suffer every hour of every day. Her focus is on the issues that are getting the media’s attention. Even though many of us have been writing to Representatives and news personalities, our issues have been either ignored or barely brought up. Obviously we haven’t made enough noise yet and until we do, they all will continue to care more about the 40 some odd thousand people who die from overdose.
Hillary is so far up the ass of Wall Street that she might as well be a republican. The money that this tax would go for will be for the people who run corporate addiction centers. Or it will be used to continue the Fight to take opiates away from the people who actually need them. It sure would be nice to have a candidate who really speaks for the people, oh yeah, we do have Bernie.
Even though he hasn’t answered any of my emails, Bernie Sanders seems to be the only canidate truly focused on health care and what it costs people living in poverty. He seems to be the only one who’s willing to go after the corporate war lords on Wall Street. Then finally, he is the only one who has brought up the fact that we pay more for prescription medications then any other country in the world pay. We as chronic pain sufferers need to not be in favor of a political party, we need to vote the issues that effects us. I have always considered myself a Democrat but when I registered to vote this year, I registered with no party affiliation.
Is Manchin up for re election??? He needs to go too. She’s just plain dangerous for this country if you read the whole back history of her and her husband.
U know,,West Virginia is one of thee most terrible to legitimate chronic physical pain people,,I also have been thru West Virginia,,,talk about coal miners, beautiful country,,but I can see how there would be a real need for pain management offices down there ..Mining is very very hard work,,,,Soo maybe the reason they have such a high rate of O.D.s is because once again they have taken away MEDICINES away from legitimate chronic physical pain humanbeings,,thus forcing them to face a life time of physical pain,,,or death,,and they choose death via o,d,,,but again refuse to document these death as .”death due to untreated physical pain,”’Furthermore also refusing in these ,”addiction centers any actual chronic physical pain person who is there for simply physical relief from their physical pain,,but documenting them as addicts,,,These lies will never fix the problem,,only by truthful documentation will they recognize that our medicines are medicines,,and if u have a medically painful physical condtion,u have ever humane right to MEDICINES!!!
Tax,,,why not tax insulin,or warfin,,or any other medicines,,,u take too much of any of those medicine u too will die,,soooo why only our MEDICINES???mary
I won’t forget , trust me .