* E-mail from the Rauner campaign…

ICYMI: Fighting Opioid Epidemic on Many Fronts

With a national spotlight being shone on the issue, Governor Rauner’s team is working to curb addiction

The nationwide opioid epidemic has attracted attention in states across the U.S., but here in Illinois, Governor Rauner’s task force is already working to curtail its spread. The Opioid Overdose Prevention and Intervention Task Force has already made it easier to get life-saving medications to prevent overdose, and now they are travelling the state, collecting information to help prevent the spread of addiction.

* The campaign e-mail linked to this editorial in the Daily Herald…

On Wednesday, Gov. Bruce Rauner’s Opioid Prevention and Intervention Task Force began a state tour in search of information and partners to help implement the state’s Opioid Action Plan to curtail the growing opioid overdose epidemic in Illinois.

The Task Force met in Chicago Wednesday and will be in Champaign and Mount Vernon in downstate Illinois this week.

“The opioid epidemic knows no neighborhood, no color, and no class. It is not confined to alleys in urban settings, nor isolated in rural communities,” said Lt. Gov. Evelyn Sanguinetti of Wheaton, the task force chair. “We are traveling the state to collect research and hear stories of those impacted by this growing opioid overdose epidemic so we can take action to save lives.”

* Rep. Lou Lang (D-Skokie) wrote an essay today about the “history of the Rauner Administration’s attempts since taking office to undermine a 2015 bi-partisan law, The Heroin Crisis Act, that serves as a national model to address the heroin crisis”…

Going back to March 2014, House Speaker Michael Madigan had already established a 39-member bi-partisan Heroin Crisis Task Force, which I chaired, and that month the full House had approved unanimously a resolution, HR 883, declaring a “Heroin State of Emergency in Illinois” and calling on the legislature to “develop a comprehensive, bold, and durable package of legislative proposals to combat the heroin crisis” – which, after multiple statewide hearings, the legislature set out to do.

After 14 months of work and hearing from more than 300 witnesses, the legislature put on the new governor’s desk the comprehensive, bi-partisan bill, House Bill 1, which I sponsored, and estimated to invest $25 to $75 million annually to fight the epidemic. The legislation included, among many other provisions, requirements that insurance providers offer coverage for medically necessary acute treatment and clinical stabilization services and that Medicaid provide all medication assisted drug treatment (injectable naltrexone, methadone, suboxone, Vivitrol, etc.) without utilization controls or prior authorization. Those provisions were opposed by Rauner’s Departments of Insurance and Healthcare and Family Services.

Despite House and Senate approval, 114-0 and 46-4, respectively, Rauner vetoed the bi-partisan bill while the heroin epidemic raged statewide. That veto sparked the first revolt by Republican lawmakers who joined with Democrats in the House and Senate to override the governor, 105-5 and 44-11, respectively.

The Rauner Administration retaliated to the bi-partisan repudiation by slow-walking the implementation of multiple provisions and failure to implement others. For example, the governor has failed to fully enforce mental health parity laws. That sabotage pushed me to introduce this year fresh, clean up legislation, HB 68, on which I consulted with the Kennedy Forum and other mental health experts, to force the governor to adhere to the current law.

Not satisfied with undermining the implementation of HB 1, the Rauner’s Administration also this year pushed legislation, HB 2908, sponsored by a top gubernatorial House ally, State Rep. Patti Bellock (R-Hinsdale), that sought to gut the Medicaid financing of medically assisted heroin treatment by re-imposing drug utilization requirements and requiring prior authorization, choking off medications for low-income individuals seeking treatment. I stifled that cynical move. Dead. The effort to weaken Medicaid funding came on top of Rauner’s move in Fiscal Year 2016 to slash state funding for drug treatment providers by 25%. And in the new state budget, Rauner killed a $1.2 million grant to the Rockford-based Rosecrance’s drug treatment triage center.

Thus, Rauner’s opioid advisory council and phantom strategy – two-and-half years after entering office – are nothing but disgraceful and cynical exercises to advance his wobbly reelection hopes. If the Illinois’ opioid crisis has worsened, it’s because Governor Rauner and his administration’s willful neglect and sabotage.

Ouch.