The Staggering Cost of the Opioid Epidemic

By Yuval Rosenberg

A pretty good Tuesday, especially if you happen
to be one of the stars — or director, screenwriter, cinematographer
or editor — of “The Power of the Dog,” the much-discussed “Western
psychological drama” that racked up a dozen Oscar nominations
today. Or Steven Spielberg, who is reportedly became first person
to get Best Director nominations in six different decades.

Far from the lights of Hollywood, things were a bit less
dazzling, as lawmakers tried to work out a budget deal and a new
analysis reminds us of the terrible cost of the opioid epidemic.
Here’s what you need to know.

House Passes Stopgap Bill to Avert Shutdown, Buy Time for a
Broader Deal

The House on Tuesday evening passed a stopgap bill to keep the
government funded through March 11 while negotiations continue
toward a broader “omnibus” spending package for the rest of fiscal
year 2022.

The short-term spending bill, known as a continuing resolution,
would avert a government shutdown on February 18, when the current
stopgap expires.

“I would have preferred to come before the House to pass a
fiscal year 2022 omnibus,” House Appropriations Committee Chair
Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) said. “But I believe we are very close to an
agreement, and I am eager to move this process forward. I have
every expectation that we can finalize a framework in short order,
and then work together to fill in the details and enact an
omnibus.

The funding bill now heads to the Senate, where Senate Majority
Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said it will be taken up quickly.
“While negotiations on a full year funding agreement continue, we
will, in the meantime, avoid a pointless and costly government
shutdown,” he said.

Deficit Totals $259 Billion Over First Four Months of Fiscal
2022

The federal budget deficit was $259 billion over the first four
months of fiscal year 2022, the Congressional Budget Office
estimated in its monthly budget review published Tuesday. The
figure for the first four months of the fiscal year “is roughly
one-third of the deficit recorded during the same period last year
($736 billion) and about two-thirds of the shortfall recorded for
the same period two years ago ($389 billion), right before the
start of the coronavirus pandemic,” CBO said. Revenues were $331
billion, or 28%, higher while spending fell by $146 billion, or 8%
compared with last year.

Pfizer Vaccine Posts Highest One-Year Sales for Any Drug
Ever

Pfizer on Tuesday reported $36.8 billion in 2021 revenue from
the Covid-19 vaccine it makes in partnership with BioNTech. That
makes the vaccine the best-selling pharmaceutical product in a
single year, Axios’s Bob Herman
reports — and it isn’t even close. Humira, the
AbbVie drug used to treat arthritis, psoriasis and Crohn’s Disease,
is next on the list with $20.7 billion in sales in 2021.

Pfizer
told investors it expects $32 billion in revenue
from its Covid shots in 2022, and another $22 billion from its
antiviral treatment pill, Paxlovid. The company said its overall
2022 revenues should climb to record levels between $98 billion and
$102 billion, up from $83.1 billion in 2021 and $41.9 billion in
2020. But Pfizer shares fell in Tuesday trading, as Wall Street was
expecting higher revenues for the fourth quarter of 2021 and an

even stronger outlook for 2022.

Opioid Deaths Cost $1 Trillion a Year: Report

Warning that trafficking in synthetic opioids is a “threat to
our national security and global competitiveness,” a bipartisan
congressional group put a staggering dollar figure on the death,
suffering and dislocation caused by the drugs: $1 trillion per
year.

Established in 2020, the Commission on Combating Synthetic
Opioid Trafficking was charged with examining the flow of
lab-manufactured drugs into the U.S. The commission includes
members of both houses of Congress, as well as staff from numerous
federal departments and agencies, including the Department of
Homeland Security and the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.

According to a
report released by the commission Monday, more than
100,000 people died of drug overdoses in the year ending last June,
an increase of nearly a third from the year before. And synthetic
opioids such as fentanyl accounted for the majority of those
deaths.

Since 1999, overdoses have been responsible for more than 1
million deaths. “In terms of loss of life and damage to the
economy, illicit synthetic opioids have the effect of a slow-motion
weapon of mass destruction in pill form,” the report says.

Putting a price tag on suffering: The commission relies
on a 2018 report from the White House Council of Economic Advisers
that concludes that opioid deaths were costing the U.S $696 billion
at the time. Given the steady increase in the number of deaths
since then, it is “reasonable to estimate that drug overdoses are
now costing the United States approximately $1 trillion annually,”
the report says.

Most of the costs are associated with lost productivity, as well
as health care and law enforcement.

No solution in sight: “Shockingly, the number of overdose
deaths in the United States has risen exponentially since 1979 and
does not appear to be dropping any time soon,” the report says.
Commission co-chair Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AK) said in a press release
that 274 Americans die every day from overdoses, the equivalent of
one person every five minutes — “and every day it gets worse.”

The commission provided a long list of recommendations for
addressing the crisis, including cracking down on Mexican drug
cartels, which transport the majority of synthetic opioids into the
U.S., as well as the Chinese manufacturers that provide some of the
raw materials.

Massachusetts to Start Sending $500 Payments to
Low-Income Workers

Massachusetts will soon begin distributing delivering $500
checks to half a million low-income workers, the state’s Republican
Gov. Charlie Baker announced Tuesday. The program, signed into law
by Baker in December, will cost $460 million, or slightly more than
10% of the $4 billion the state received through the $1.9 trillion
American Rescue Plan Act.

Individual workers will need to have earned at least $12,750 in
2020 to qualify for the first $500 payment from the program, but no
more than 300% of the federal poverty level — in the case of a
single filer with no dependents, the cutoff would be $38,280.
Workers who received unemployment benefits in 2020, however, will
not be eligible for the first round of payments, though they may
qualify for the second round, which covers 2021.

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