President’s Budget Includes Significant Focus on Confronting Addiction Crisis
On the state front, MN creates director of recovery position that will lead advisory council and report to governor
This was originally published for Hazelden Betty Ford’s monthly Recovery Advocacy Update. If you’d like to receive our advocacy emails, subscribe today.
By Emily Piper
On March 28, President Biden released his proposed budget for 2023. Building on the addiction and recovery priorities he laid out in his State of the Union address, the President’s budget includes significant focus on issues affecting the people we serve.
Some of the highlights in the proposal include an additional $21.1 billion for HHS to support prevention, treatment, and interdiction efforts; funding for the CDC’s harm reduction services and SAMHSA’s First Responder’s Training Program; a permanent 10% set-aside for recovery in SAMHSA’s Substance Abuse Prevention and Treatment Block Grant (something for which we’ve been advocating for months); funding increases for ONDCP’s Drug- Free Communities Support (DFC) program and High-Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas (HIDTA) program; and more.
In addition to those proposed investments, President Biden’s budget includes $275 million for the Department of Labor to fund parity enforcement activities over a 10-year period and calls for fines to be levied against non-compliant federally regulated insurance plans.
On the heels of the President’s budget release, the Senate — led by Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) — held a Finance Committee hearing on parity. The hearing, including written testimony, brought to light the complexity of achieving true parity and ensuring that services and coverage for mental health and substance use conditions are fair and commensurate with services and coverage for other health conditions. From integration of services, to Medicare payments, to workforce issues, to insurer practices and beyond, the challenges are far-reaching. On the other side of Capitol Hill, the House Energy and Commerce Committee took up 11 bills during a hearing entitled “An Epidemic within a Pandemic: Understanding Substance Use and Misuse in America,” with several of the proposals also attempting to address the structural barriers to parity.
One other note on the President’s budget, from our friend John Kelly, PhD, founder of the Recovery Research Institute, who tweeted:
Positive news… “abuse” will likely now be removed from names of NIDA, NIAAA, SAMHSA, CSAT, CSAP. Officially changed in President’s proposed FY23 Budget -still need to be passed by Congress. NIDA is proposed to now be the, “National Institute on Drugs and Addiction”; NIAAA will now be, “National Institute on Alcohol Effects and Alcohol-Associated Disorders”; SAMHSA is now proposed to be the, “Substance use And Mental Health Services Administration” …CSAT to, “Center for Substance Use Services”; and CSAP to, “Center for Substance Use Prevention Services”
Dr. Kelly has been a champion of scrubbing these agency names of the expendable word “abuse,” which his own research has shown to elicit negative stereotypes and bias, even among caregivers. We have joined him in that advocacy over the years, and continue to be grateful for his and others’ research on the topic.
Finally, some big news emerged in Hazelden Betty Ford’s headquarters state of Minnesota. Gov. Tim Walz announced a strategic realignment and elevation of state government’s work addressing the addiction crisis. The Governor signed an executive order launching a new interagency subcabinet and advisory council to confront addiction, and will soon appoint a new Addiction and Recovery Director to lead the state’s work on the issue and direct the subcabinet and advisory council. The Addiction and Recovery Director will report to Governor Walz and be the administration’s key point person for the state’s efforts to address opioids, substance use, and addiction. Additionally, the governor ordered an independent review of current efforts across government. We are proud to have been collaborators on the development of these critical steps to improve our home state’s response to the growing addiction crisis and to bring our expertise from other states to the table in Minnesota.
Emily Piper is the vice president of government and external affairs for the Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation.
