Kirsten Gillibrand Wants Gov't to Decide How Many Painkillers You're Allowed to Get

Jim Treacher | 4:13 PM on March 19, 2019

*Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) listens to a staffer before answering questions at a news conference Dec. 12, 2017, on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)*

Nine years ago last month, I was struck down while crossing the street in Washington, D.C. My knee was shattered and I ended up needing two major surgeries and many months of physical therapy. All told, it was 18 months before I was able to walk again unaided. And the whole time, I was in severe pain, often excruciating. I wouldn’t have gotten through that ordeal without pain medication. At various stages I was taking Dilaudid, OxyContin, or Vicodin. I hated the side effects, like nausea and confusion and sweating, and I was worried about getting hooked. But I didn’t. As the pain eased, my doctors lowered the dosage until I didn’t need it anymore. My knee still hurts, pretty much every day, but it’s manageable. Pain medication helped me get through the worst thing that ever happened to me, and then I walked away from it. Literally.

So whenever I see meddling politicians trying to take those decisions away from me because other people make the wrong decisions, I get really angry.

If we want to end the opioid epidemic, we must work to address the root causes of abuse. That’s why @SenCoryGardner and I introduced legislation to limit opioid prescriptions for acute pain to 7 days. Because no one needs a month’s supply for a wisdom tooth extraction.

— Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (@gillibrandny) March 15, 2019

So people who are genuinely in pain need to suffer, just because Kirsten Gillibrand wants to be president?

As with just about everything Gillibrand says, this directly contradicts her past rhetoric. She used to hold a much different view about who should be responsible for such decisions:

pic.twitter.com/Y6o7qWCBYZ

— BT (@back_ttys) March 19, 2019

“Keep Your Laws Off My Body” only counts when a woman wants to kill her baby before it inconveniences her.

You want government-run healthcare? This is what it looks like. People you’ll probably never meet in your entire life, who don’t know anything about you, will decide how much pain you get to live with.

Kirsten Gillibrand is never going to be POTUS, and she’s never going to be my doctor.