I’ve been hanging out on my favorite (sure, I guess it’s) private Facebook group in the R-town, the Dirty Rich, this evening.
One of my old favorite arguments has emerged from the heroin epidemic. Someone has posted about how “if these people have ‘families’ why don’t they pay for the narcan instead of my taxes?”
I’m not sure anyone who has ever said “instead of taking it from my taxes” has any idea what they’re actually talking about.
So let’s do a quick overview of where a person’s tax money goes.
Here are just the percentages from that article:
- 24% Social Security
- 15% Medicare
- 15% Defense
- 13% Health
- 13% Income Security
- 6% Net Interest
- 5% Veterans Benefits
- 6% Other
- 3% Education
Now let’s ignore, for a moment, that there is in fact a 13% health expenditure here, as well as 15% going to Medicare.
The Narcan this person is complaining about is carried by police officers.
Where do Police officers get Narcan? Some came from here. That’s not tax payer money. But assuming it was, consider this, from our esteemed hometown newspaper run by the dude who used to work at Chili’s so you know he knows the community.
So a police officer could die. From exposure on a call.
It’s a safety measure.
What are some other safety measures for police officers? Maybe a bullet-proof vest? That’ll set you back anywhere from $300 for a bad one up to $2500 for a decent one.
A single dose of Narcan would set you back $40.
Based on the cost-to-benefit ratio of being able to save one life, that seems like a real bargain. You could get 60 doses of Narcan for the cost of one police grade bulletproof vest (and have spare money to get lunch for one of the homeless people in front of Kroger).
But let’s assume it’s not for police safety, even though that’s what the chief and the sheriff claim. Let’s assume it’s just for the person who overdoses. There are some reasons to think about this specifically on a cost-benefit basis.
First of all, let me remind anyone reading that I’m just engaging in a hypothetical. There are enough non-profits trying to help people with addiction that the only way a police department is covering their own Narcan purchase is if they simply chose to eat the expense and not seek out aid. It’s not coming out of anyone’s taxes.
But if it was, here’s my question to the person who is tired of his taxes paying for Narcan. You know, the Narcan police have been carrying for such a short time that we wouldn’t even have felt the expense anyway.
Do you think handling a dead body– processing it, calling the coroner, having it stored, spending the man hours to locate and notify next-of-kin, burying the person if there are no next-of-kin– is free? That would be another expense for the municipal funds to cover, and it’s going to cost significantly more than $40.
Of course there’s also the fact that such fear– that Narcan is too expensive to come out of someone’s precious tax money– is barbaric. If anyone recalls the outrage over the “Obama Death Panels,” we’re watching people suggest the same, as now some want to choose when someone gets treatment and when someone doesn’t.
Most importantly, though, there’s an assumption that anyone who would need Narcan did something wrong. Yes, some addicts relapse. And it sucks. Some people just want to be addicts. It is a disease, and it takes people’s lives both literally and metaphorically.
But what if someone spikes your drink? What if someone pulled switcheroo on your prescription meds?
Do you want to die because you didn’t want to let $40 of government money go to paying for a dose of Narcan?
What’s next? No epi pens because people like me should know better than to be allergic to cats?
America has become even more self-serving and ridiculous than I ever thought it might.
It taxes my patience.