There would probably be a lot of people that legitimately would never be able to leave the hospital -- there really are people out there with legitimate chronic pain.

I say this after having had a C6-C7 spine fusion surgery -- prior to that, the pain was incredible. And two or three years ago I couldn't have even imagined what that kind of pain felt like, until I was actually suffering it. Luckily surgery was incredibly effective, and I hated having to take pain pills (made it difficult to work), but the pre-op alternative (living with constant pain) wasn't very great.

I certainly didn't want to sit in a hospital just to be able to move around a bit -- and I couldn't have immediate surgery, though I did have surgery as soon as I was allowed to (primarily due to insurance).

I'm sure there are people out there with far worse pain, and in many cases likely untreatable causes. Putting all of those people in the hospital certainly isn't going to help with insurance prices, nor is it a particularly humane way to treat people in the general sense.

I was on opiods for a month. At the time it was prohibitive to get out of bed, let alone go to the hospital. I dont remember it much but sleeping on my own bed beats the heck out of the hospital.

People in long term pain need better access to specialist pain management clinics with the full range of interventions - exercise, alternative prescribing, etc. But even with Opioids Aware prescribing, and even if cannabis is legalised, some people will still need opioids.

http://www.fpm.ac.uk/faculty-of-pain-medicine/opioids-aware