AUDIO – ONE CLENT AT A TIME –
Nov. 3, 2025 – A new book explores the dark side of the drug rehabilitation industry. It’s called “Rehab: An American Scandal,” and it’s written by Shoshana Walter, an investigative reporter with The Marshall Project. Walter joined “Marketplace Morning Report” host David Brancaccio for a conversation about the failures and expenses of drug rehab. The following is an edited transcript of their conversation.
David Brancaccio: Give us a sense at least of the lay of the land in the world of rehab: Generally for-profit? A mixture of big players and small outfits? How does it work?
Shoshana Walter: The rehab industry as a whole is a $53 billion industry. You have insurance-funded programs, you have totally unregulated recovery homes, and then you have the world of medication-assisted treatment.
Brancaccio: Now, I know you have “scandal” in the title of this, but what do the data tell you about the success or failure of the overall system?
Walter: On average, people go to rehab multiple times before they enter recovery. Someone who attends a 30-day program and finishes that program is actually much more likely to overdose and die in the year following that treatment program than someone who failed to complete that program at all.
