Noah Michelson, the Voices Editorial Director and Executive Editor of Queer Voices at Huff Post as well as the co-host of the Love + Sex Podcast returns to the show as he does every Thursday to help us close out the week with the stories making headlines over at Queer Voices. Be sure to follow Noah of Twitter!
As the United States
attempts to understand and deal with the ongoing opioid epidemic, much of the
debate surrounding who’s to blame has been centered on drug makers,
pharmaceutical distributors, pharmacies and doctors. However according to a new report by The New York Times and ProPublica, insurance companies also
share in the blame. The reports details
how insurers have encouraged the opioid crisis by limiting access to pain
medications that carry a lower risk of addiction or dependence, even as they
provide comparatively easy access to generic opioid medications because opioid
drugs are generally cheap while safer alternatives are often more
expensive. Joining me today to talk all
about this cost saving measure that the insurance industry has employed and the
role it has played in unleashing a devastating epidemic across the country is
reporter for The New York Times Katie Thomson who co-authored the
report with Charles Ornstein of ProPublica.
Listen to The Michelangelo Signorile Show weekdays live from 3-6 pm ET on SiriusXM Progress 127 and on the SiriusXM apps. Not a subscriber? Not a problem! Listen online any time with a free thirty-day pass or go to the app store and download SiriusXM for free and listen on your phone
|