Dr. Michael Brumage’s resignation as director of the West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources’ Office of Drug Control Policy is effective Friday, according to a news release from the DHHR.
WHEELING — Republicans and Democrats in the West Virginia Legislature agree no changes are needed to sports betting legislation passed during the recent legislative session, and there is no need for Gov. Jim Justice to call a special session to amend it.
“We don’t need Bloomberg to write our story,” the governor said. “We don’t need the Wall Street Journal to write the success story of West Virginia. We need to write it.”
Applied Economics Vice President Ron Whitfield said the study, which he oversaw, looked at the potential return on investment over a 20-year time frame, how pricing levels would impact those returns and other risk factors, including differences in capital costs, operating rates, customer proximity and access to international markets.
The opioid epidemic is costing Boone County’s economy an estimated $206.5 million a year — the highest per-capita burden of any county in America, according to a new report by the American Enterprise Institute.
The opioid epidemic, which killed 64,000 Americans in 2016, is making governments resort to unprecedented policies for saving lives and preventing addiction in the first place.
Mixed signals from the Trump administration on how to use the money and state challenges ramping up their efforts have left untouched more than three-quarters of the $500 million Congress set aside under the 21st Century Cures Act in late 2016.
The legislation is named after Jessie Grubb, a Charleston native who had battled opioid addiction for seven years before becoming sober and moving to Michigan. She was six-months clean when she underwent surgery for a running-related injury. The discharging doctor was unaware of Grubb’s addiction and prescribed her 50 oxycodone pills. She died the following day at the age of 30.
U.S. Senator Joe Manchin said he was able to get the Jessie’s Law wording in the spending bill.
“If there’s one thing that’s most satisfying is knowing that Jessie is going to live on by saving more and more lives because of what we know now,” Manchin said.
Nearly three years into its own harm reduction program, an official with the Wheeling-Ohio County Health Department says his community is not seeing the kinds pushback on the effort that includes needle exchanges like his counterparts in Charleston
Officials with the state’s High Education Policy Commission, which oversees four-year colleges and universities, unveiled a formula that would use a school’s performance to determine how much money it gets from the state.
“I share the governor’s commitment to the arts and would support cabinet-level representation of these important programs in a manner consistent with eliminating excess bureaucracy,” said House Education Chairman Paul Espinosa, R-Jefferson.
The problem: The state is required to keep 14 percent of its anticipated health care payments for current employees on reserve but was running $29 million short. The legislature’s solution: Increase deductibles and copayments for state employees, who currently pay for 20 percent of their plans.
