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"Access to Recovery: Taking Action To Heal America's Substance Users: Information and facts on the President's new three-year, $600 million federal treatment initiative, which will help more Americans combat their addiction.

Access to Recovery-In his State of the Union Address, President Bush announced a new three-year, $600 million federal treatment initiative, Access to Recovery to help Americans suffering from substance abuse and addiction find needed treatment by providing vouchers to individuals needing assistance. This new investment in our nation's communities will broaden the base of recovery support and make treatment services available to help 300,000 more Americans combat their addiction over the next three years.

Last year, approximately 100,000 men and women seeking treatment for drug addiction did not receive the help they needed. The President's plan is designed to ensure that Americans without private treatment coverage and struggling with addiction have access to a comprehensive continuum of effective treatment services and recovery support options, including faith- and community-based programs, and ensure that these options are more readily available.

Access to Recovery will ensure access and accountability for alcohol and drug abuse services by allowing individuals greater choices among appropriate programs. It would enable eligible individuals to use federal alcohol and drug abuse vouchers to obtain help at all effective treatment organizations, including faith-based and community-based organizations. This would expand treatment utilization and accountability, thereby broadening and strengthening the current system.

Access to Recovery will provide a way for the Federal Government to monitor state implementation of the program to prevent fraud and abuse; ensure quality of care; and evaluate the effectiveness of the program. It would also enable nonprofit and proprietary organizations to have a greater opportunity to participate through full and open competition.

Under the President's plan, people who are seeking drug and alcohol treatment and support services will be assessed, presented with a voucher to pay for a range of appropriate care and services, and then referred to a variety of providers who offer that care.

States will work with a consortium of public and private entities to jointly administer the program, including health care providers, faith-based and community-based organizations, workplaces, and schools to help alcohol and drug abusers receive vouchers for the treatment and support services that are best suited to their individual needs. States would be required to monitor the outcomes and costs of the voucher program and to make adjustments based on the extent to which improved client outcomes are or are not achieved in a cost-effective manner.

For many Americans seeking treatment, the transforming power of faith will now be available to heal those suffering from alcohol and drug abuse. Access to Recovery will serve as a model for states in administering other Department of Health and Human Services alcohol and drug abuse grant funding permissible under proposed Charitable Choice regulations."

To read more please click below: http://www.whitehousedrugpolicy.gov/treat/initiative.html

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Treatment Vouchers: A $600 Million Promise?

By Charles Pekow,

MJ Editor's note: At press time, the House and Senate have not issued funding decisions on the proposed Access to Recovery program. For the latest information, visit www.samhsa.gov, www.house.gov, and www.senate.gov, and contact your policy-makers.

A voucher program to allow people in need of substance abuse treatment to choose it at government expense? President George W. Bush proposed this idea in his State of the Union address January 28. The reaction was mixed on Capitol Hill, where members of Congress from both parties like the idea of providing federal dollars - but have their own ideas about how to spend them.

In his address and formal budget proposal in February, Bush presented a request to Congress for $200 million in each of the next three years for an Access to Recovery (formerly Recovery Now) program. The administration estimates that 100,000 drug and alcohol users need but cannot get treatment, based on the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Administration (SAMHSA) 2001 National Household Survey on Drug Abuse released last October. "Based upon $200 million, we should be able to serve about 100,000 people - annual treatment averages $2,000," SAMHSA Administrator Charles Curie told Counselor.

How vouchers would work
Under Bush's plan, individuals seeking help first would get assessed, and then would receive a voucher and guidance on treatment options. In other words, they would choose their own treatment from available hospitals, clinics, and individual providers.

"The program is designed to improve quality, expand services and provide a greater number of providers," explained John Walters, director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy. Individuals in need of treatment could be assessed at a variety of locations: physicians' offices, emergency rooms, workplaces, the criminal justice system, and schools. "Wherever you have people who have a need, you have referral directly to a list of providers," said Walters. Furthermore, "vouchers allow us to welcome people" who can provide treatment but don't work directly with the federal government, and will help cut time delays between diagnosis and treatment, he added.

Vouchers could fund such programs as medical detoxification, in-patient and outpatient services, residential treatment, peer support, relapse prevention, and case management. Depending on individuals' needs, health care providers, employers, and schools could also participate, creating competition among providers.

Under the law of supply and demand, vouchers should stimulate the supply of providers, the administration figures. For example, a center receiving a grant to serve 10 clients will prepare 10 beds; but with vouchers, the administration believes, providers would increase their capacity to serve clients who come in with payments in hand.

Walters added that vouchers would save the government money because programs typically operate with utilization rates between 75 and 80 percent, and the government winds up spending money for slots not being used. Vouchers solve that problem because the government would pay only for people receiving treatment.

"It is going to be very important to have accurate professional assessment and diagnosis determining the best treatment for that individual and that the individual be given options," Curie explained. "If they need an intensive outpatient program, they'll receive a listing of credentialed intensive outpatient providers."

To read more please click below: http://www.counselormagazine.com/display_article.asp?aid=august03Washington.htm

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House Trims Bush Administration Request for Drug Treatment Vouchers

Publisher: The Roundtable on Religion and Social Welfare Policy

By: Anne Farris, Roundtable Washington Correspondent

The U.S. House of Representatives has approved a $138 billion spending bill that includes only half of the first year funding than the Bush administration had sought for a new drug treatment voucher program. The legislation is expected to go to the Senate this week for consideration.

The President proposed spending $600 million over three years on the voucher program as part of his faith-based initiative to allow more religious organizations to provide drug and alcohol rehabilitation services. However, the House bill trimmed the President's request from $200 million to $100 million for the first year, according to Jennifer de Vallance, spokeswoman for the Office of National Drug Control Policy. The bill will be considered next by the Senate, where supporters are hoping to have the full amount restored.

The proposal seeks to allow people to use vouchers to choose a substance abuse treatment program, a system of indirect funding which would allow the government to fund services, including thickly religious ones, provided by faith-based organizations. The plan follows last year's Supreme Court decision which upheld the use of education vouchers in Ohio at religiously affiliated schools. The court ruled that such funding was constitutional so long as the program served a secular public purpose and beneficiaries had genuine, independent choices between religious and secular providers.

To read more please click below:

http://www.religionandsocialpolicy.org/news/article_print.cfm?id=728

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Is Bush Expanding Faith-Based Drug Treatment?

January 4, 2005

The Bush administration, as part of the "President's Compassion Agenda," may be expanding its Access to Recovery (ATR) program, which provides federal funds to faith-based drug-treatment providers via a voucher system. While the Bush administration had proposed an doubling of overall funding for the program, the Associated Press Reports the program budget will be held at $100 million. But even as the AP report seems to indicate the ATR program is a new one, the White House doled out millions of dollars in funding for it in summer 2004, saying at the time it would allocate "almost $100 million for the Access to Recovery program to help Americans conquer addiction using substance abuse treatment vouchers to access the most effective programs."

To read more please click below:

http://www.drugpolicy.org/news/01_04_05faith.cfm

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Nearly 60 Percent of Counties Report Meth as Largest Drug Problem

Counties on Front Lines of Meth Crisis

WASHINGTON, D.C. –The National Association of Counties (NACo) will release two surveys during a news conference on Tuesday, July 5 in the Lisagor Room at the National Press Club at 10 a.m. The surveys, “The Criminal Effect of Meth on Communities,” and “The Impact of Meth on Children,” were designed to determine the effects of this destructive drug on counties and their citizens.

The methamphetamine epidemic in the United States, which began in the West and is moving East, is having a devastating effect on our country. The increasingly widespread production, distribution and use of meth are now affecting urban, suburban and rural communities nationwide. County governments across America are on the front lines in responding to the methamphetamine crisis.

For counties, meth abuse causes legal, medical, environmental and social problems. County governments and their citizens must pay for investigating and closing meth labs, making arrests, holding lawbreakers in detention centers and then trying them, providing treatment for those addicted to the drug, and cleaning-up lab sites.

WHO: National Association of Counties (NACo)

WHAT: The release of two new surveys (“The Criminal Effect of Meth on Communities” and “The Impact of Meth on Children”)

WHERE: National Press Club—Lisagor Room

WHEN: July 5 10 a.m.

The National Association of Counties (NACo) is a full-service organization that provides legislative, research, technical and public affairs assistance to county governments. Created in 1935, NACo continues to ensure that the nation’s 3,066 counties are heard and understood in the White House and Congress.