Opioids, Drug Price Explosion, Zika/Abortion Nexus

I. Opioid Addiction
"More people died of drug overdoses in 2014 in the U.S. than in any other year, and 60% of them were because of painkillers. Over the past 17 years, rates of opioid-overdose deaths have quadrupled." "Study after study supports the effectiveness of drug-based therapies for opioid addiction. People who take methodone and suboxone are better able to keep a job, avoid relapses and gradually reduce their need to continue using heroin or opioids." "Still, many doctors don't prescribe suboxone. About 90% of the prescriptions for it are written by just 6,000 of the 32,000 doctors in the U.S. certified to administer the drug." (Source: Alice Park, "A new paradigm for opioid addiction," TIME, October 24, 2016).

II. Shooting Down Skyrocketing Drug Prices
Three in four Americans believe that drug  companies put profit before people, according to a recent Kaiser Family Foundation poll. There are four ways to bring down rising drug prices:

1. Hillary Clinton rolled out a plan in early September that would have created a team of federal officials tasked with monitoring drug-prices hikes.

2. Allow Americans to import drugs.

3. Change the patent process so that the government rewards companies with patent protections only when they can demonstrate  they've invested in developing or improving a drug with high therapeutic value.

4. Help regulate fast-track generics by allowing the FDA to collect fees from generic-drug manufacturers to expedite the approval of new drugs. Manufacturers could hire more employees to make headway on the backlog of roughly 4,000 generic medications. (Source: Haley Sweetland Edwards, "4 ways to shoot down skyrocketing drug prices," TIME, October 24, 2016).

III. The Zika/Abortion Nexus
The dilemma for American women is that taking steps to end a pregnancy at the 20-week point that it takes to know if the Zika infection has developed, would be considered a late-term abortion, which 15 states have outlawed. That leaves pregnant women in those states with a near impossible choice should they contact or even think they have contacted Zika: They either abort the fetus earlier in their pregnancy, while it is legal, but before they have evidence of microcephaly, or roll the dice and hope for the best.

A recent Harvard-STAT poll found that only 23% of Americans believe a woman should have access to an abortion after 24 weeks. The same poll found that support for abortions after 24 weeks more than doubles, to 59%, if a woman is told her baby has a serious risk of microcephaly. Those in the same poll who believe that abortions should be legal in all or most cases: 59% for those in their 30s or 40s; and 52% of those over 65.  Overall, 41% think abortion should be illegal in all or most cases. (Source: Bryan Walsh, "How Zika could change the politics of abortion," TIME, October 24, 2016).

IV. Doctors Oppose Health Care Reform
James Surwiecki, who writes on economic matters for the New Yorker magazine, believes that doctors have a history of opposing health-care reform of all kinds. He cites the most "famous instance" as when the American Medical Association's campaign against the creation of Medicare. "It's not only government reforms that doctors have resisted; it's about any plan that has threatened to reduce their income or autonomy."

"There's plenty of evidence that financial considerations affect medical decisions: for instance, studies show that doctors have a financial stake in imaging equipment like MRI machines order many more unnecessary MRIs." (Source: James Surwiecki, "Doctors Orders," The New Yorker, December 19, 2016).