We need to do something radical.
American Carnage.

Alison’s story: How $750,000 in drug ‘treatment’ destroyed her life

When she enrolled in a South Florida drug treatment program in 2015, Alison Flory had high hopes of getting her life in order and starting anew.

But instead of receiving life-saving health care, the 23-year-old from a Chicago suburb found herself being recruited from one recovery residence to another as a string of shady drug treatment facilities systematically overcharged her mother’s health insurance policy for expensive, unnecessary procedures and tests.

By October 2016, Alison was dead.

This is the story of how two troublesome national trends – booming drug addiction rates and widespread fraud in the health care industry – conspired to destroy a young woman’s life.

The US is in the midst of an epidemic of drug addiction and fatal overdoses with more than 52,000 deaths in 2015 – and the numbers are rising. The carnage is fueled in part by the widespread legal distribution of opiates to medical patients, easy availability of cheap heroin, as well as an ever-expanding lineup of other types of prescription drugs and synthetic intoxicants ripe for abuse.

The crisis is creating a broad new spectrum of Americans struggling with addiction – from suburban high school students, to young adults, to white-collar office workers, to grandmothers on Medicare.

At the same time, America is facing an epidemic of fraud in the health-care industry. Experts estimate that the government and private insurance companies lose $100 billion each year to health care scams and fraudulent claims. (That is more than the entire GDP of 131 of the world’s 195 countries. It would place 24th on the Fortune 500 list of largest US corporations, ahead of Boeing, Microsoft, and Bank of America.)

Link to Christian Science Monitor Article