Home Local News IOWA LAWMAKERS TABLE OPIOID BILL

IOWA LAWMAKERS TABLE OPIOID BILL

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Iowa lawmakers have “indefinitely” tabled a bill that would have forced insurance companies to cover the medication used as treatment for an opioid addiction.

Backers of the bill said it would speed up access to methadone and similar drugs for patients trying to break an addiction to painkillers.

Dennis Tibben of the Iowa Medical Society says patients are often in limbo.


OC……..has relapsed.” :11

Insurance companies opposed the bill, as did some business groups.

Legislators say they’d like to study the issue and focus on ways to address access to opioids.

Mike Triplett, lobbyist for the online pharmacy “Express Scripts”, says other states are trying to get doctors to write smaller prescriptions for addictive painkillers.


OC…….off the market.” :15

The Iowa Department of Public Health says opioid abuse is a “becoming a problem of epic proportions in Iowa.”

The number of people seeking treatment for a heroin or other opioid addiction quadrupled between 2005 and 2014.

Radio Iowa