Tucked away in the state’s massive $58.8 billion budget bill is a last-minute proposal that is sparking uproar from community groups — and the state’s own attorney general.
The proposal calls for diverting $45 million in opioid settlement funds into the coffers of four major hospital systems in New Jersey, money that advocates said should be going directly to groups that treat people struggling with drug and alcohol abuse. Advocates said they didn’t learn about the change until this weekend.
But especially notable are concerns being raised by the state’s own attorney general, Matthew Platkin, who said the diversion repeats mistakes of the past.
“I don’t take any issue with hospitals getting funding; I understand they’re stretched thin right now,” Platkin said in an interview with NJ Spotlight News. “But these dollars are supposed to go to best practices to combat the opioid epidemic and nothing else.'”
The proposal calls for sending $15 million each to RWJ Barnabas Health and Cooper University Hospital, $10 million to Hackensack University Medical Center and $5 million to Atlantic Health System. Just weeks ago, the state’s Opioid Recovery and Remediation Advisory Council laid out recommendations for where the money should go — with a focus on community-based groups.
“This is an epidemic that continues to take the lives of thousands of New Jerseyans every year, and I just can’t stand idly by and watch us spend this money outside of the process that we all agreed to,” Platkin said. “In a way, that reminds me of what we did a few decades ago with the tobacco settlement fund dollars, which were diverted away from their intended purpose and something we’re still dealing with the consequences of.”
In the interview with NJ Spotlight News, Platkin also weighed in on the recent U.S. Supreme Court birthright decision that drastically limits the powers of federal judges’ ability to grant nationwide injunctions. Platkin co-led the legal challenge to President Donald Trump’s executive order.
“I think its important to note what the Supreme Court did not do,” he said. “It did not opine on the merits of birthright citizenship … What they said is we just need to show that we can’t alleviate all of our harms as states without nationwide relief.”
