After having been recommended by a White House task force to take immediate action concerning the opioid crisis, President Trump has decided against declaring a national state of emergency.
By choosing not to do so, President Trump is ignoring the recommendations of a White House task force put into place by him, though Secretary of Health and Human Services Tom Price says “emergency,” is just a word.
“We believe that at this point that the resources that we need or the focus that we need to bring to bear to the opioid crisis at this point can be addressed without the declaration of an emergency.”
Price continued by saying that he felt the crisis was not comparable to other emergency situations like the national outbreak of a disease or a natural disaster.
Having declared the state of emergency concerning the opioid crisis would have jump-started an immediate response to deal with the ongoing issue, including providing additional resources from the federal government to states hardest hit.
That was the recommendation made by Trump’s opioid task force, headed by New Jersey Governor and longtime Trump pal Chris Christie, who published a report last month calling on President Trump to take immediate action.
“With approximately 142 Americans dying every day, America is enduring a death toll equal to September 11th every three weeks. Your declaration would empower your cabinet to take bold steps and would force Congress to focus on funding and empowering the executive branch even further to deal with this loss of life.”
If put into place, the plan from that task force would focus on rehabilitating addicts, rather than punishing them. It would expand the reach of Medicaid to higher-level treatment facilities and would greenlight the use of more experimental and controversial methods of battling addiction.
Apparently, Trump is too busy trying to start a nuclear war with North Korea to worry much about the millions suffering in his own country.
