Ky. doctors must join pill abuse fight

Kentuckys drug abuse problem is a lot of problems. Its a personal crisis for tens of thousands, its a plague for thousands of families, its a drain on law enforcement at every level, its an expense for employers and government.

And its a huge public health problem. More Kentuckians die from drug overdoses than car crashes.

Some drug dependency arises when people treat symptoms with pain killers because they dont have access to or cant afford the medical care they really need. There are also doctors who make a lot of money prescribing pain killers for almost all comers.

Compounding all this is a shortage of treatment for people trying to fight their dependency. There has been a 900 percent increase in people seeking treatment for substance addiction in Kentucky in the past decade. More than 25,428 Kentuckians were admitted to drug and alcohol rehab programs in 2010.

Kentucky is one of the few states that doesnt offer substance-abuse treatment through Medicaid. That will change soon. The legislature has approved Gov. Steve Beshears proposal to add $11.6 million in Medicaid funding the first year of the biennial budget to treat about 4,500 people, increasing to $14.9 million and an additional 1,300 people the second year.

Drug or alcohol abuse is a factor in the vast majority of cases when a child dies or almost dies from abuse or neglect. So, Kentucky is giving priority for treatment to parents with custody of young children. This is only now possible because of the Affordable Care Act of 2010, otherwise known as Obamacare, which provides the flexibility to target certain populations for care.

House Bill 4, aimed at giving law enforcement more tools to track doctors who prescribe painkillers inappropriately or illegally, has not fared so well. It would move the Kentucky All Scheduled Prescription Electronic Reporting system (KASPER) from health services to the office of the attorney general, create a user fee to fund it and give law enforcement more access to information about physicians who prescribe painkillers and patients who use them.

The Kentucky Medical Association protective of its members pocketbooks, the privacy of the physician-patient relationship and patients who legitimately need these medications opposes HB 4, calling for a broader discussion aimed at finding a balanced approach.

Its not clear what that means or how it would help authorities identify and pursue rogue physicians who are, literally, killing Kentuckians. Nor is the KMA leading the charge to provide access to quality health care that could prevent some dependency.

The Kentucky medical community, through KMA or other channels, needs to join this fight.

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Ky. doctors must join pill abuse fight