OxyContin, in 80 mg pills, in a 2013 file image. A 2017 shows that repealing the Affordable Care Act would cut $5.5 billion a year for substance-abuse and mental health treatment, creating a 50 percent spike in the number of people unable to address their opioid dependence. (Liz O. Baylen/Los Angeles Times/TNS)
OxyContin, in 80 mg pills, in a 2013 file image. A 2017 shows that repealing the Affordable Care Act would cut $5.5 billion a year for substance-abuse and mental health treatment, creating a 50 percent spike in the number of people unable to address their opioid dependence. (Liz O. Baylen/Los Angeles Times/TNS) Credit: Liz O. Baylen

Washington — A new study by Harvard Medical School and New York University shows that repealing the Affordable Care Act would cut $5.5 billion a year for substance-abuse and mental health treatment, creating a 50 percent spike in the number of people unable to address their opioid dependence.

The lost funding would have sweeping implications as deaths from opioid abuse continue to rise across the nation and local governments struggle with the effects on their communities.

Repeal without replacement of funds would have “particularly adverse effects” on states like Kentucky and Pennsylvania, wrote Harvard health economics professor Richard Frank and Sherry Glied, dean of the Wagner School of Public Service at New York University.

Both states used the health care law’s Medicaid expansion to promote medication-assisted treatment for opioid abusers.

“We estimate that approximately 1,253,000 people with serious mental disorders and about 2.8 million Americans with a substance use disorder, of whom about 222,000 have an opioid disorder, would lose some or all of their insurance coverage” under a repeal of Obamacare, Frank and Glied wrote.