Recent Medicaid expansions sharply increased access to treatment for opioid use disorder, researchers find

MedicalXpress | avr. 06, 2026

Medicaid insurance expansions between 2017 and 2023 sharply increased access to medication treatment for opioid use disorder in a period when fatal overdoses continued to climb, according to Rutgers Health researchers. Their study, published in JAMA Network Open, finds that expanded Medicaid coverage yielded meaningful population-level increases in the use of buprenorphine, a medication used to treat opioid use disorder.