Andy Beshear Set Out to Make Drug Treatment Widely Available in Kentucky. Fraud and Abuse Followed. by Alex Acquisto and Taylor Six, Lexington Herald-Leader Co-published with Lexington Herald-Leader ++

Andy Beshear Set Out to Make Drug Treatment Widely Available in Kentucky. Fraud and Abuse Followed. In 2020 as Kentucky faced a spike of deadly overdoses, Gov. Andy Beshear set out to help more people access drug treatment by loosening Medicaid spending controls. But as the costs piled up, so did the warnings that the system was being abused. by Alex Acquisto and Taylor Six, Lexington Herald-Leader Co-published with Lexington Herald-Leader https://www.propublica.org/article/andy-beshear-kentucky-opioid-drug-crisis-medicaid-spending-fraud?utm_source=sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=majorinvestigations&utm_content=secondary In 2020, as Kentucky faced a spike of deadly overdoses, Gov. Andy Beshear set out to help more people access drug treatment by loosening Medicaid spending controls. But as the costs piled up, so did the warnings that the system was being abused. Despite multiple red flags from industry experts, the Beshear administration did little to rein in the skyrocketing state spending. By 2024, industry experts said that, as a result of the 2020 changes, drug treatment providers were billing too much for subpar care that was leading to worse outcomes. In 2025, the Kentucky attorney general’s office said Medicaid fraud in drug treatment had become a primary “area of concern.” The governor has been unapologetic about state spending on drug treatment. In a June interview with ProPublica and the Lexington Herald-Leader, Beshear pointed to the continued decline in drug overdose deaths as proof that he made the right choice. “If we’d gone back in time too early and changed things too drastically, how many more people would have died that we’ve saved? With four straight years of drug overdose decreases, they can throw blame at me,” Beshear said. “We’ll talk about dollars, but there are people’s kids that are still alive today because they were able to get addiction treatment services and get them quickly.” They Needed Treatment for Drug Addiction. The Company They Turned to May Have Used Them to Commit Fraud. https://www.propublica.org/article/kentucky-addiction-recovery-care-medicaid-fraud?utm_source=sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=majorinvestigations&utm_content=secondary by Alex Acquisto and Taylor Six, Lexington Herald-Leader Co-published with Lexington Herald-Leader