美国国家公共电台 NPR GOP's Proposed Cuts To Medicaid Threaten Treatment For Opioid Addiction

 

LULU GARCIA-NAVARRO, HOST:

One of the really big challenges in revamping health care is funding Medicaid, the federal program for low-income or needy¹ people. House Republicans voted to cut it dramatically this spring. Behind closed doors, the Senate is looking at whether it should do the same. But advocates say one of Medicaid's benefits is getting people addiction² treatment, especially in the middle of the current opioid crisis. Member station WITF's Ben Allen has this from Pennsylvania.

CHARLENE YURGAITIS: I saw you. How are you today?

BEN ALLEN, BYLINE³: If you get her talking, Charlene Yurgaitis can be quick to smile. She shows me around her apartment in Lancaster, Pa.

YURGAITIS: Look at all my sneakers. And I keep them in boxes (laughter). I love sneakers and boots and flip-flops.

ALLEN: Yurgaitis, who is 35 years old, once supervised 17 people at an insurance company. Despite her lively personality, she says she never really felt accepted. And when some college students moved in next door about a decade ago, she started doing OxyContin before moving to heroin⁴ and harder drugs. She went into recovery earlier this year.

YURGAITIS: I've been doing everything that I can possibly do to stop using. My normal thought is to just do it. Nobody will ever know.

ALLEN: But Yurgaitis gets a monthly Vivitrol shot.

YURGAITIS: That stops me.

ALLEN: The medication blocks receptors in her brain so she can't get high off opioids but also costs about a thousand dollars a dose. That's paired with weekly therapy sessions and visits with a recovery coach. Medicaid pays for all of it.

YURGAITIS: Without the government helping⁵ me get where I'm at because, I mean, I would never be able to afford counseling. I would never be able to afford psych meds. I would never be able to afford the Vivitrol shot.

ALLEN: Yurgaitis is among the more than 124,000 Pennsylvanians who depended on Medicaid expansion to get help for their drug or alcohol addiction last year. The Republican health care bill that passed the House in May and is now under consideration by the Senate reduces spending for the program by more than $800 billion over 10 years.

Yurgaitis's representative in Lancaster County voted for the bill. And in the Senate, Pennsylvania Republican Pat Toomey agrees Medicaid should be cut. Under the Affordable⁶ Care Act's Medicaid expansion, states pay no more than 10 percent for those new people. Toomey says states should have to pay a higher share.

PAT TOOMEY: So if it's not worth it to the state to buy this coverage⁷ at 43 cents on the dollar, then how is it worth - those very same taxpayers⁸ who at the end of the day have to provide the funding for the federal program, why is it worth it to them to pay 90 cents on the collar? It just doesn't make sense.

ALLEN: If Congress cuts federal dollars to Medicaid, that would leave states to fill in the gap, limit access to care or drop people off coverage. At a clinic in Harrisburg, Dr. Sarah Kawasaki says recovering from opiate addiction is so physically⁹ difficult that people need access to medication to help. If they can't get it...

SARAH KAWASAKI: By necessity, they would probably have to go back to using heroin or any other medications they could find on the street to avoid getting sick. And I would worry about that.

ALLEN: Kawasaki he says flatly, if funding is reduced, more people would die from overdoses, and hepatitis C and HIV infections would rise because of dirty needles. In Lancaster, Charlene Yurgaitis gets worked up just thinking about the potential cuts.

YURGAITIS: Why are you trying to change something that's working? You know, that's what I don't understand. If I don't have those places to go to, I don't have anything else. And when I'm in my counseling session, that is my safe place.

ALLEN: Yurgaitis hopes she'll be able to get treatment for years to come so that at some point she can go back to work, perhaps helping other people recover from addiction. For NPR News, I'm Ben Allen in Harrisburg.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: This story is part of a reporting partnership¹⁰ with NPR, WITF and Kaiser Health News.

1 needy   

adj.贫穷的，贫困的，生活艰苦的

参考例句：

• Although he was poor,he was quite generous to his needy friends.他虽穷，但对贫苦的朋友很慷慨。
• They awarded scholarships to needy students.他们给贫苦学生颁发奖学金。

2 addiction   

n.上瘾入迷，嗜好

参考例句：

• He stole money from his parents to feed his addiction.他从父母那儿偷钱以满足自己的嗜好。
• Areas of drug dealing are hellholes of addiction,poverty and murder.贩卖毒品的地区往往是吸毒上瘾、贫困和发生谋杀的地方。

3 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

4 heroin   

n.海洛因

参考例句：

• Customs have made their biggest ever seizure of heroin.海关查获了有史以来最大的一批海洛因。
• Heroin has been smuggled out by sea.海洛因已从海上偷运出境。

5 helping   

n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的

参考例句：

• The poor children regularly pony up for a second helping of my hamburger. 那些可怜的孩子们总是要求我把我的汉堡包再给他们一份。
• By doing this, they may at times be helping to restore competition. 这样一来, 他在某些时候,有助于竞争的加强。

6 affordable   

adj.支付得起的，不太昂贵的

参考例句：

• The rent for the four-roomed house is affordable.四居室房屋的房租付得起。
• There are few affordable apartments in big cities.在大城市中没有几所公寓是便宜的。

7 coverage   

n.报导，保险范围，保险额，范围，覆盖

参考例句：

• There's little coverage of foreign news in the newspaper.报纸上几乎没有国外新闻报道。
• This is an insurance policy with extensive coverage.这是一项承保范围广泛的保险。

8 taxpayers   

纳税人，纳税的机构( taxpayer的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Finance for education comes from taxpayers. 教育经费来自纳税人。
• She was declaiming against the waste of the taxpayers' money. 她慷慨陈词猛烈抨击对纳税人金钱的浪费。

9 physically   

adj.物质上，体格上，身体上，按自然规律

参考例句：

• He was out of sorts physically,as well as disordered mentally.他浑身不舒服，心绪也很乱。
• Every time I think about it I feel physically sick.一想起那件事我就感到极恶心。

10 partnership   

n.合作关系，伙伴关系

参考例句：

• The company has gone into partnership with Swiss Bank Corporation.这家公司已经和瑞士银行公司建立合作关系。
• Martin has taken him into general partnership in his company.马丁已让他成为公司的普通合伙人。