Granite Staters Protest AG Sessions’ Approach to Combating Opioid Abuse

By: Linda Barr, Public News Service – NH

CONCORD, N.H. – U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions was greeted by protesters in Concord, where he spoke with law enforcement agencies about the opioid crisis. Outside the federal courthouse, healthcare, recovery and criminal justice reform advocates carried signs that read “Healthcare is a Human Right,” “Healthcare Not Prisons,” and “Beds Not Cells.”

They want Sessions to defend the Affordable Care Act and its requirement to cover people with preexisting conditions – which he’s already said he won’t do.

Zandra Rice Hawkins, executive director with the group Granite State Progress, says the Trump administration is trying every angle to dismantle the ACA.

“And that is really dangerous because people need healthcare coverage, but particularly for the opioid crisis, to have access to substance-use disorder treatment has been the number one tool that we have used to combat that crisis here in New Hampshire,” says Hawkins.

Sessions was in Concord on a tour to announce what he calls “Operation Synthetic Opioid Surge” or SOS. He is ordering prosecutors in 10 areas with some of the highest overdose death rates – including New Hampshire – to, in his words, “systematically and relentlessly prosecute every single synthetic opioid case.”

The Justice Department has refused to defend the preexisting conditions coverage mandate in a lawsuit by Republican states that claim it is unconstitutional. Hawkins says the provision is needed not only for those who seek opioid addiction treatment, but for access to health insurance later in life.

“The Trump administration and AG Sessions is simply looking to have more failed policies on the war on drugs,” says Hawkins. “What we actually need are health care and treatment for substance-use disorder, and we know that that is going to be the best path forward. We are tired of broken promises and failed policies that don’t actually help Granite Staters or other Americans.”

More than half of Granite State residents, or 572,000, have preexisting medical conditions. Nationwide, more than 130 million Americans could be affected by changing the coverage requirement.