{"id":63652,"date":"2017-09-20T18:00:29","date_gmt":"2017-09-20T22:00:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=63652"},"modified":"2017-09-20T18:13:17","modified_gmt":"2017-09-20T22:13:17","slug":"time-the-affordable-care-act-is-being-exploited-to-allow-people-to-prey-on-opiod-addicts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=63652","title":{"rendered":"(Time) The Affordable Care Act is being exploited to allow people to prey on Opiod addicts"},"content":{"rendered":"

As so often happens, a frantic mother called us about her 19-year-old daughter, who I\u2019ll call Jen. A\u00a0heroin<\/a>\u00a0addict, Jen had been shuttled between multiple treatment centers and sober homes by greedy marketers looking to cash in on the teenager\u2019s insurance benefits by keeping her perpetually in recovery, but never sober. As our investigator searched Palm Beach County for Jen, her mother finally reached her by phone. She pleaded with her daughter to leave Florida, to which Jen replied, “Why would I come home? I have all I need here.\u201d In the ensuing months, Jen has become a victim of a vicious cycle known as “the Florida shuffle.\u201d She has continued in and out of treatment, repeatedly relapsed and\u00a0overdosed<\/a>, been on the brink of death, was revived and all the while trafficked by marketers offering free rent and other gifts \u2014 as she ignores her mother\u2019s desperate pleas to come home.<\/p>\n

Americans know of the carnage wrought by the\u00a0opioid epidemic<\/a>. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control,\u00a0opioids<\/a>\u00a0caused 91 deaths every day in 2015. Expect a significant increase when the 2016 medical examiner and coroner reports are released nationwide. In my jurisdiction alone, 596 people died from\u00a0opioid-related deaths<\/a>\u00a0in 2016, an increase of 286% since 2012.<\/p>\n

Less known, however, is that this growing epidemic has been fueled in part by the manipulation of well-intended federal laws \u2014 such as the\u00a0Affordable Care Act<\/a>\u00a0(ACA) and Mental Health Parity Act \u2014 by unscrupulous individuals looking to profit on the misery and vulnerability of others. Fueled by new financial benefits in federal law, private drug treatment providers have flourished, as marketers often push individuals with\u00a0substance use disorder<\/a>\u00a0to the warm weather states of Florida, Arizona and California as recovery destinations. The unethical players within the recovery industry see the addict as a valuable commodity and have exploited federal law to foster a cycle of relapse, rather than recovery.<\/p>\n

Today, big money in the drug treatment industry comes through failure. …<\/p>\n

Read it all<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As so often happens, a frantic mother called us about her 19-year-old daughter, who I\u2019ll call Jen. A\u00a0heroin\u00a0addict, Jen had been shuttled between multiple treatment centers and sober homes by greedy marketers looking to cash in on the teenager\u2019s insurance…<\/span><\/p>\n

Read more ›<\/a><\/div>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":794,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[513,99,149,168,104],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-63652","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-2009-american-health-care-reform-debate","category-drugsdrug-addiction","category-economy","category-ethics-moral-theology","category-health-medicine"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63652","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/794"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=63652"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63652\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":63655,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63652\/revisions\/63655"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=63652"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=63652"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=63652"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}