This week, the Baltimore City Health Department had the honor of hosting Director Michael Botticelli of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP).

During the visit, we discussed the tireless frontline efforts we have taken in the city to overcome the opioid overdose epidemic, remove stigma around substance use disorder, and improve access to drug treatment. We met with members of the Work Group on Drug Treatment Access and Neighborhood Relations and visited our Needle Exchange Program to allow our guests to witness the great work we are doing in our communities.

Just days from the end of his tenure as the nation's drug czar, Michael Botticelli visited Baltimore's health department on Tuesday to highlight the efforts of local officials to combat the nation's opioid epidemic and warn against a scaling back of health insurance coverage for addiction treatment.

Millions of people have gained access to addiction treatment through insurance provided under the federal Affordable Care Act, he said. That's now under threat from the GOP-led Congress and the incoming administration of Donald Trump, which have pledged to repeal the law known as Obamacare.

As fatal overdoses continue to climb in Maryland and across much of the country, Botticelli said more treatment is needed, not less.

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On Wednesday morning, over 120 residents and representatives from community-based organizations, foundations, businesses, nonprofits, and service providers assembled to discuss trauma and mental health in Baltimore City. We convened the first in a series of meetings to better understand how the community defines and experiences trauma in order for the department to build better policies and programs that emphasize and lift up the work already happening in the community. As a result, we will build a citywide plan to address trauma in our communities.

The start of the 115th Congress has focused on the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Legislators speak about repealing a policy, about political strategies. 

For me, as a doctor, as Baltimore City’s doctor, it’s about my patients and their lives.

Eight years ago, before the ACA, I treated a 36-year old man, a father of two toddlers. He stopped taking his seizure medications because insurance companies wouldn’t cover him. He had a choice: pay thousands of dollars a month, out of pocket, or ensure that his family had rent and food. As many others would have done, he chose his family, and let his medications lapse.

By the time he was brought to the ER, he had suffered a grand mal seizure. He was unconscious and continually seizing. We gave him medications. We put a breathing tube in. We did everything we could, but he never came out of the coma, and he died.

I think about him and his family when I hear discussions of the ACA. I think about the 40,000 people in my city who would be uninsured if not for the ACA. My patients tell me that they’re scared.

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