Former New York City mayor Mike Bloomberg recently announced in a Bloomberg Opinion piece that he will not be running for President in 2020. But that apparently won't keep him from tackling a nationwide public health emergency. On Thursday, his philanthropic organization, Bloomberg Philanthropies, announced that Michigan will be the next state to join its $50 million initiative to help address the country's opioid crisis.
It's been 507 days since President Donald Trump declared the opioid crisis a nationwide public health emergency on October 26, 2017. There is certainly no indication that the crisis has been averted. Yet, during his 2019 State of the Union Address, Trump mentioned the word "opioid" only once, compared to the 14 times that he used the word "border." Thursday also happened to be the same day that the U.S. Senate voted 59-41 to overturn Trump's national emergency border declaration.
The question then is which is the Trump administration focusing more on: something that not everyone agrees is an emergency versus something that most experts agree is a crisis? In his opinion piece, Bloomberg said, "With a leader in the White House who refuses to bring the parties together, it will be nearly impossible for Congress to address the major challenges we face, including climate change, gun violence, the opioid crisis, failing public schools, and college affordability."
He added that "Until 2021, and possibly longer, our only real hope for progress lies outside of Washington. And unlike most who are running or thinking of it, I’m fortunate enough to be in a position to devote the resources needed to bring people together and make a big difference."
One of the differences that Bloomberg is aiming to make is in the opioid crisis. As I mentioned previously for Forbes, on November 30, 2018, Bloomberg Philanthropies announced that it will invest $50 million to help up to 10 states over the next three years tackle the opioid crisis and that Pennsylvania would be the first state to receive support. The initiative also includes Vital Strategies, the Pew Charitable Trusts, Johns Hopkins University and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) through the CDC Foundation as partners.
With Thursday's announcement, Michigan will be the second state to receive $10 million and other support from Michael Bloomberg's philanthropic organization. Michigan, whose state motto is "If you seek a pleasant peninsula, look about you," certainly has a lot of pleasant spots, being surrounded by the Great Lakes. However, like so many other states, Michigan, also known informally as the Mitten State, has been in the grips of the nationwide opioid crisis that has been killing an average of 130 Americans every day. The state has had the eighth highest number of overdose deaths in the country, with 2,694 drug overdose deaths in 2017 and opioids accounting for three-quarters of them. Even more concerning, such numbers have been on the rise, as there was a 14% rise in drug overdose deaths from 2016 to 2017.
These grim numbers weren't the only reasons why Michigan will be joining Pennsylvania in the initiative. Kelly Henning, MD, Public Health Program Lead at Bloomberg Philanthropies, listed other reasons why Michigan was chosen, such as it being "a large state in the Midwest with a large population and significant urban and Native American populations. Plus, it has a governor and an administration that are keen on working on and addressing the opioid crisis in an urgent manner."
Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer just took office at the first of this year, after defeating Republican Bill Schuette in the November 2018 election. Whitmer said in a statement about the Bloomberg initiative:
The opioid epidemic is one of the greatest health crises of our lifetime, and we need to marshal all forces necessary to fight back. The opioid crisis affects nearly every county in Michigan. These funds will help our state advance a comprehensive plan and implement critical interventions that can make the biggest impact to reduce overdose deaths.
Bloomberg added in a statement that "Governor Whitmer is committed to reversing the epidemic, and our goal is to support her administration with resources and expertise that can help them save more lives.”
Of course, the $10 million won't just go into purchasing a giant magic wand that will easily whisk the opioid crisis away. No such wand exists, even for a giant mitten to hold. Instead, addressing the crisis will take time, effort, data, and approaches grounded in science. As Henning described, the first step will be to "sit with the different teams in Michigan that are dealing with opioid crisis and talk about their needs. As we have been doing in Pennsylvania, we will walk through what they are doing now and determine where they need catalytic activities." This will involve conducting a statewide tour, going to "not just the capital but all four quadrants of the state." A key component will be talking to first responders, who will have first hand knowledge about the impact of the opioid crisis. For example, after her recent visit to Eastpointe, Michigan, Henning relayed that: "firefighters there have been responding more frequently to opioid overdoses than fires."
One of the goals of the initiative will be to have Pennsylvania, Michigan, and any other state that eventually participates serve as models for other states in dealing with the opioid crisis. Bloomberg won't be running for President and this initiative, of course, won't have all of the resources and authority that the federal government has. But that won't necessarily prevent him and others from taking action.
