Ethel Johnson couldn't get her prescription for pain medication filled fast enough. The 60-year-old Buffalo woman was hurting — but investigators say that wasn't the reason for the rush.
According to secretly recorded telephone conversations, the sooner Johnson could pick up her pills, the more quickly she could sell them to her dealer. Her pain pills were destined for the street.
Johnson is among 33 people charged so far in a large-scale investigation that has opened a window into an emerging class of suppliers in the illicit drug trade: medical patients, including many who rely on the publicly funded Medicaid program to pay for their appointments and prescriptions. She has pleaded not guilty.
For the first time, the Buffalo investigators devoted the kinds of resources normally aimed at street drugs like heroin or crack — wiretaps, buys, surveillance and cross-agency cooperation to trace the drugs from pharmacy to street. Even they were taken aback by the burgeoning market for the kinds of pills found in medicine cabinets in typical American homes.
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2010/12/05/ny-bust-medicaid-patients-rx-drugs-dealers/#ixzz17L2QFuFI
1 comment:
The effect of the aging baby boom generation has yet to play out. You have fewer people working to support a large mass of retirees who have the expectation of retirement for 20-30 years after the age of 65.
Competing factors for young people will be that there will be no shortage of jobs for young people in the next 30 years, but the fruits of their labors will be drained off by inflation caused by a smaller production force, and a larger consumption force (pesky reality of supply and demand).
On the other hand, older retired people will be able to access entitlements and retirement funds, but that same inflation will take a big bite of the expected value of these.
There is no way for society to escape this reality. It is a function of an aging population. However, individuals who plan their lives around this reality can prosper. Young people who invest in their own productivity (education) will be able to tap into the unlimited demand for labor that a retired population will require, and offset the consumption drain of the aging sector. Old people who are willing to work until they are 70 or older will be in demand and be able to offset the weakness accompanying their retirement assets.
These are the two groups that will thrive. And there will be 2 groups that will barely survive: the young who think that they can make a living in the low skill jobs (the uneducated arts such as flipping burgers), and the retired who expect to kick back at 65 and live solely on social security. These two groups are in for a long 30 years.
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