At the end of 2022 Mental Health America released its annual study highlighting the harsh realities of the mental health crisis in our country. Of the many notable findings in the report, one statistic stands out: 15 percent of adults reported having a substance use disorder in the past year. Of them, 93.5 percent did not receive any form of treatment.

Couple that with the 105,000 overdose deaths in 2021, a nearly 69 percent increase over pre-pandemic levels, and we’re looking at a full-blown catastrophe.

But it doesn’t have to be this way. The current US health care system enables, encourages, and then ignores mass death on an unimaginable scale — but it’s every bit as changeable as it is brutal. The only real obstacles to change are the private insurance industry and its allies in government. When we propose that the United States adopt universal health care, the solution that the rest of the world has already figured out, the response from politicians in both parties is that the cost of a comprehensive single-payer system outweighs its benefits, all while their loved ones easily access and afford adequate treatment. Of course, studies have shown that a single-payer system saves not only lives, but money too.