Two Decades Into Opioid Crisis, Insurance Coverage Questions Only Beginning to Find Answers

While the world has been focused on the global COVID pandemic, the United States has continued to struggle with its own unique epidemic. The opioid crisis has gripped the country for over two decades and has only continued to worsen over the past two years. Since the start of the COVID pandemic, nearly 179,000 Americans have died from opioids. The CDC estimates that roughly 250 Americans die every day from an opioid overdose. Beyond the devastating physical toll, the opioid epidemic has had severe economic consequences on the nation as well. A bipartisan congressional report issued earlier this year found that the opioid epidemic costs the United States roughly $1 trillion a year.

Michael Kassak and Adam Berardi discuss how this opioid crisis has produced a flood of litigation and the effect on insurers in the recent article Two Decades Into Opioid Crisis, Insurance Coverage Questions Only Beginning to Find Answers.