New research finds drug overdose death rate twice as high in Medicaid beneficiaries – RTI

“Medicaid beneficiaries accounted for 25% of the population but 48% (44,277 of 91,799) of all overdose deaths nationwide. Moreover, from 2016 through 2020, overdose deaths among Medicaid beneficiaries increased by 54%, according to the study.”

Opioids Ravaged a Kentucky Town. Then Rehab Became Its Business. – NY Times

“In Louisa, an unbearable social crisis has become the main source of economic opportunity.”

“In eastern Kentucky, a region plagued by poverty and at the heart of the country’s opioid epidemic, the burden of addressing this treatment gap has mainly been taken up by addiction-rehab companies. Many stand more like community centers or churches than medical clinics, offering not just chemical but also spiritual and logistical services with the aim of helping people in addiction find employment and re-enter society. And in the two five-year periods between 2008 and 2017, eight of the 10 counties in America with the steepest decline in overdose mortality rates were in eastern Kentucky. The state now has more residential treatment beds per person than any other state in the country, and provisional data show that, in the 12 months ending on June 30 this year, the number of overdose deaths dropped by 20 percent over the previous 12-month period. Eastern Kentucky is one of the places where you’re most likely to die of a drug addiction but also the place where you’re most likely to receive treatment for it.”

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