Addiction Touches Almost Everyone

75% of Americans know someone who is addicted.

A new survey by Lake Research Partners, sponsored by George Soros’s Open Society Institute and presented at the June 16 Conference of Mayors meeting in Providence, R.I., reveals that three of every four people surveyed said that they personally knew someone who has been addicted to alcohol or drugs.

More ominously, half of Americans “say they could not afford treatment if they or a family member needed it. They are also concerned that people addicted to alcohol or drugs may not be able to get treatment because of cost or lack of insurance coverage – a concern likely heightened by the current economic recession.” Moreover, financial concerns about treatment are highest among Americans with incomes less than $50,000. 67% of that income group said they would not be able to afford addiction treatment.

Among the survey’s other findings:

--Three‐quarters (75%) of Americans are concerned that people who are addicted to alcohol or drugs may not be able to get treatment because they lack insurance coverage or cannot afford it. Concerns about the affordability of and access to addiction treatment emerge throughout the survey results. Four in ten (41%) are very concerned.

--Nearly three‐quarters (73%) support including alcohol and drug addiction treatment as part of national health care reform to make it more accessible and affordable. This support cuts across all demographic groups. Lake Research Partners notes that this figure is quite high, “given the current economic climate and public concerns about government spending." One‐quarter (26%) oppose increased funding.

--Two‐thirds of Americans (68%) also support increasing federal and state funding for alcohol and drug prevention, treatment, and recovery services.

--Finally, more than nine in ten (96%) support providing specialized prevention, treatment, and recovery support to veterans and military returning from active duty (78% strongly support this effort).

The poll was sponsored by Closing the Addiction Treatment Gap , a program of the Open Society Institute. This program seeks to raise awareness around alcohol and drug addiction and its effects on family and communities. The telephone survey was conducted May 29-June 1, 2009 among a nationally‐representative sample of N = 1,001 adults 18 and older. The margin of sampling error is + 3.1 percentage points.

Graphics Credit: http://naturalpatriot.org/category/education/

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Soros Funds Addiction Initiative

Urges insurance companies to close “treatment gap.”

In a move designed to jump-start a reluctant insurance industry, philanthropist George Soros is pushing an addiction initiative aimed at the estimated 20 million Americans who cannot afford treatment for substance abuse.

Through his New York-based Open Society Institute (OSI), Soros will award $10 million in grants to study “obstacles associated with addiction treatment.” Victor Capoccia, who previously ran community-based drug and alcohol treatment programs for the Boston Department of Health and Hospitals, will serve as director of OSI’s Initiative to Close the Addiction Treatment Gap. Capoccia also directed the addiction prevention effort at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

Any future system of universal health care should provide coverage of addiction as a medical condition, the group believes. “We’re going to look at the role of the public sector, and ask government to pay for people who lack insurance, not as a replacement for what other insurance should be paying for,” Dr. Capoccia told Alcoholism and Drug Abuse Weekly. “We don’t want public funds subsidizing what should be an insurance responsibility for this health issue.”

Among the issues the initiative will explore are the expansion of Medicaid to cover science-based addiction treatment, an emphasis on early intervention and aftercare, and increased funding of treatment programs from a variety of sources. Backers of the Soros initiative maintain that drug addiction is a health issue that should fall within the general financing of existing health care delivery systems.

“People with a health condition ought to have that condition treated,” Capoccia told the Baltimore Sun in an article by Michael Hill. “They should not be jailed or shunned or put aside until their condition is so acute that they are a hopeless case.”

Capoccia described addiction as a chronic disease like diabetes and hypertension. “Using that chronic disease framework,” he told the Sun, “you realize that this is a condition you have to learn to manage. It is not a case of finding a cure, that it’s here today and gone tomorrow. It is a process of mitigation, of reducing the harmful effects, reducing the behaviors associated with those harmful effects.”

Capoccia pointed to Baltimore and San Francisco as communities where local governments have focused effectively on addiction treatment, and have “helped build a sense of collaboration…between health departments and law enforcement in really positive ways."

Addiction, said Capoccia, “has all these impacts, yet we decide to provide the resources so only one in 10 gets help. It’s laughable.”

Grants will be for $600,000. Specific information about the funding program is available at http://www.soros.org/initiatives/treatmentgap/focus_areas/guidelines

Photo Credit: The Washington Note