States announce $26B settlement to resolve opioid lawsuits: RPT

Chris Meekins, Healthcare Policy Research Analyst at Raymond James, joins Yahoo Finance to discuss healthcare talks in Washington this week and the latest news on the opioid lawsuits.

Video Transcript

KRISTIN MYERS: So, Chris, as part of these budget deals, essentially, Democrats want to expand Medicare benefits to cover dental and other expansions, essentially, in health care. And it is, as your note even suggested, incredibly costly to make some of these health care provisions or to keep some of these health care provisions. How likely is it, do you think, that especially on some of these expansions-- which we've heard Republicans don't want. We've already seen the long, drawn out, and protracted battles at least when it comes to the Affordable Care Act-- how likely is it do you think that some of those provisions are actually going to end up on the chopping block?

CHRIS MEEKINS: Yeah, I think that's a great question. And I think we are looking at-- if you just look at what they're saying they're going to spend on health care as part of the separate $3.5 trillion package-- so we're talking today and the votes on the hard infrastructure package, which is roads, bridges, broadband, that type of stuff, and then a separate human infrastructure package that's only going to get Democratic votes if they're able to get it across the finish line.

They're talking about expanding Medicare to cover dental, vision, hearing. They're talking about making permanent ACA subsidy increases. They're talking about potentially finding a way to cover individuals eligible for Medicaid expansion in the 12 states that have it. So really, at the end of the day, that's, like, $600 billion to $700 billion that they would, generally speaking, need to find offsets within health care. And that's a lot of money to cut out of health care.

So at the end of the day, I think they'll probably expand one of those areas-- so either dental hearing or vision. On the regulatory side, Medicare already covers some of dental when it's a medical necessity. So maybe they can say we're going to broaden that definition that Medicare has, and then it doesn't actually cost the government money. So what we're really on the cusp of-- there's a big balancing act, but what Democrats realize is that when you're in the minority, as Republicans are, the best thing you can do is try to delay, delay, delay the majority actions, legislative days, and so that they don't have as much time to get something done. And that's why we're seeing these forcing a vote like today.

ALEXIS CHRISTOFOROUS: Chris, this news broke just a few minutes ago, so I'm not sure if you're aware, but certainly it's been an ongoing story. And I would love to get your reaction to it. It looks as though states have now announced a $26 billion settlement to resolve those outstanding opioid lawsuits. This could bring, we know, an end to the thousands of lawsuits brought against Johnson & Johnson and three of the nation's largest medical distributors-- McKesson, AmerisourceBergen, and Cardinal Health.

This is a milestone, certainly, in these cases. Do you think this is going to clear the way for money to be received by states, maybe even as soon as early next year? Because goodness knows, they need the money.

CHRIS MEEKINS: Yeah, no question. We've seen the opioid epidemic, which had been making some small progress prior to COVID, just really take off again with overdose deaths dramatically increasing. It's really a scourge in the nation at this point. So obviously, if some additional money can be put into states, that's possible.

But when I go back and look at other massive settlements, the one that comes to mind is tobacco. That took a little bit of time to actually flow its way through the states, and money to get there, and all the way down for people to actually put it to use to make a difference. So I think any settlement we're going to see is probably going to take twice as long as people assume it will take to get money actually to help individuals that need it right now.

KRISTIN MYERS: All right, we're going to have to leave that there. Chris Meekins, Health Care Policy Research analyst at Raymond James, thanks so much for joining us, as always.