Nationwide, Legislators Look at Taxing Opioid Drugmakers to Fund Addiction Treatment
As of late April, legislators in at least 15 states had introduced bills to impose a tax or fee on prescription analgesics that have abuse potential, as a way to funnel more money to addiction treatment, according to an article by the Associated Press (AP).
The strategy is to make drug manufacturers and their distributors contribute to the cost of addiction treatment. In Delaware, for example, survivors of people who died of overdoses are supporting bills that would require the revenue from the tax be dedicated to addiction services. And in some states, it is the legislators themselves who are survivors of overdose victims.
Several of the bills have bipartisan support and would funnel millions of dollars toward treatment and prevention programs, according to the article.
Montana State Senator Roger Webb, a Republican, told the AP that this approach would hold drugmakers accountable for an overdose epidemic that in 2016 claimed a record high of 42,000 lives nationwide.
"You're creating the problem," he said. "You're going to fix it."
A Pennsylvania opioid tax bill was introduced in 2015 and a federal version was introduced a year later, but most of the proposals in other states arose during the past year. New York is the only state to implement an opioid tax so far.
Most of the proposals in other states are in an early stage, and lawmakers are facing intense pressure from the pharmaceutical industry to kill or weaken the legislation, the AP reported.
Drugmakers and distributors argue that the cost increases would eventually be absorbed by patients, and that there are other ways to pay for addiction treatment and prevention.
"We have been engaged with states to help move forward comprehensive solutions to this complex public health crisis and in many cases have seen successes," said a statement from the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America. "However, we do not believe levying a tax on prescribed medicines that meet legitimate medical needs is an appropriate funding mechanism for a state's budget."
Purdue Pharma and Pfizer released similar statements.
A spokesman for the Healthcare Distribution Alliance, which represents drug distributors, said a tax could lead to reduced access for patients with cancer and those in end-of-life care.
The pharmaceutical industry has emphasized that the name-brand drug companies that make up its members already give rebates to states for drugs funded by Medicaid, and that states could use those rebates, which amount to billions of dollars nationwide, to address opioid addiction.
Minnesota State Representative Dave Baker, a Republican whose son died of a heroin overdose after getting started on prescription painkillers, told the AP that the rebates-about $250 million in 2016 in Minnesota-are intended to make up for overcharging for drugs in the first place.
Delaware State Senator Stephanie Hansen said drug companies told her they already were contributing $500,000 to antiaddiction measures in that state, where there were 282 fatal overdoses from all drugs in 2016, a 40% increase from the year before.
"My response is, 'That's wonderful, but we're not stopping there,'" said Hansen, a Democrat and lead sponsor of the opioids bill in her state.
She told the AP that if her proposed tax measure had been in place last year, it would have raised more than $9 million.
Meanwhile, manufacturers and distributors are defending themselves in hundreds of lawsuits filed by state and local governments seeking damages for the toll the overdose epidemic has taken on communities, the AP reported.
A 2016 investigation by the AP and the Center for Public Integrity documented that makers of opioids and their allies spent $880 million on politics and lobbying from 2006 through 2015.
The industry so far has succeeded in stalling the Minnesota legislation, which would charge opioid manufacturers by the dosage. With the bill facing resistance, the sponsors told the AP they were considering changing tactics and looking to New York as a model of success.
The bipartisan bill's Democratic cosponsor, Minnesota State Senator Chris Eaton, whose daughter died of a heroin overdose in 2007, said her goal is to find a way to create and fund a structure that will ensure addiction treatment is "as routine as treating diabetes or cardiac arrest." (See Mulvihill G, and Potter K. Drugmakers push back against lawmakers' calls to tax opioids. Associated Press, April 28, 2018. https://www.apnews.com/fd2ec67de61e41b584bf2d9191234741/Drugmakers-push-back-aga.)