Citizen Leader Resource Center to Take on the Opioid Crisis

What the Opioid Crisis Is Really About

Between 1999 and 2016, there were more than 200,000 deaths via prescription opioid overdose in the United States. Millions more are caught in the iron grip of addiction.

The opioid crisis can be understood in a lot of different ways. It’s been described as a failure of policy, the collateral damage in the pursuit of irresponsible profits, or just the latest trend in an eons-old cycle of addiction. But one area that has not received enough scrutiny is the very nature of how healthcare is delivered and paid for in the United States.

We have spent years as a country arguing over who would pay for health insurance, without spending even one-tenth that time talking about reforming a broken care system.

Yet precisely because of this crisis’ overwhelming visibility, the keys to fixing health care are hiding in plain sight. And the primary lever we can pull in the fight against opioid overprescription and misuse is value-based primary care.

Lend Your Voice to the Cause

Action steps you can take to help make a difference:

1. Contact your member of Congress.

Encourage Congress and the Administration to use the large number of government employees as a natural place to accelerate the rebuilding of primary care which is the foundation of any functional health care system..
Find contact information for your member of Congress at GovTrack.

2. Learn more about the issues.

Read about a patient who was prescribed an unacceptable amount of opioids despite repeated attempts to decline them.
Download your free copy of The Opioid Crisis Wake-Up Call: Health Care is Stealing the American Dream. Here’s How We Take it Back.

3. Tell us your story.

We are working to collect stories of how the broken U.S. healthcare system is aiding and abetting the opioid epidemic – tell us your story.

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