Comment on Analysis: ‘Obamacare’ shapes how states spend opioid grants

With Republicans and Democrats joining forces again in a bipartisan effort to target the U.S. opioid crisis, an Associated Press analysis of the first wave of emergency money from Congress finds that states are taking very different approaches to spending it. To a large extent, the differences depend on whether states participated in one of the most divisive issues in recent American politics: the health overhaul known as “Obamacare.” The AP analysis found states that expanded Medicaid under President Barack Obama’s health overhaul reported spending their allocations more slowly than states that didn’t expand the health insurance program to poor, childless adults. Why?