I have friends in their late-30s who struggled to get pregnant with IVF.  They have a son who's two, and would love another child, but used up what their insurance will allow for fertility and can't afford it on their own.  What's sadder is they would love to adopt, but they can't afford that either.  

I don't know their preferences on age, nationality, etc., or if they've thoroughly checked their options.  But when you hear of adoption costing $25,000 and up, it is out of reach for people like them.  They both have blue collar jobs and work really hard. They could afford to modestly raise two children, but not if one means a up-front cost in the thousands. And yet there are thousands of children out there who need a family. What a terrible situation.

None of this is new.  Even 10 years ago, there were Hauge treaties.  You have to do your due dilligence as it relates to "agencies".  Almost anyone can become an "agency".  Also, with so much fear of agencies out there, people have a tendency to use "independents" and "coordinators".  Steer clear of those, IMHO.
We used an agency that was placing children in my community at that time.  I was able to speak with other parents, see their documentation, etc.

Adoption is free.  Even in other countries.  You pay for things like homestudies and social worker fees.  Many agencies charge "referral fees".  We adopted newborn twins and paid way less than the numbers I've seen and heard bandied about.  We flew 1st class, stayed in high end hotels, you get the picture...and still didn't pay that. yikes.

Our girls are from Russia.  There are some disrupted adoptions from Russia.  I am happy to report that those "Russian and East European" children are no less likely to disrupt than our own, American born, foster children.  All children are individuals and so are their circumstances.  Any adoption should be treated like a "special needs" adoption.  Institutions are not great.  "Foster Care" in some countries means privatized institutions.  I don't need to remind most of you that the U.S. foster system suffers.  If a child were in an ideal situation, they wouldn't be available and in need of a family.  There have been volumes written on parenting hurt children.  Some children come with more wounds/scars and some come with less.  If someone is looking for a perfect product, and many adoptive parents are doing just that, parenting (adoptive or biological children) may not be a wise choice.

I read the linked article and, although it is indeed very sad, sounds no different than the stories I've been reading for over a decade now.  

It sounds like a couple of you know people who made it through the system without being properly prepared by their "agencies".  They were obviously paired with children who had needs greater than their abilities to provide.  

Jess and I are friendly with three parent/child pairs in her Wednesday swim class. All three families have girls adopted from the same orphanage in China (it's funny, but every time I see the girls, I think of Gilbert and Sullivan's Mikkado). Post-adoption, either the orphanage or the Chinese authorities (I'm not quite sure) changd the criteria for adopting families and all three families are now judged as "too old" to adopt again. Sad, really, because they're awesome people and all three girls would really, really like younger siblings.

On the plus side, all three have maintained relations with the orphanage and the foster families the girls were placed with, so all three have a pretty decent grounding on what their lives were like for the first year after they went to the orphanage. It's really lovely to see.

China changed their rules and I am now too old and have medical issues that mean no sibling for our son Tai. As far as not knowing medical issues, I also know people who were shown photos of twins from Russia that the agency called 'perfectly healthy' but who a doctor said would require longterm care. This agency also recruited families and took their money for adoptions in an Eastern European country while the program was suspended in country, telling families it would reopen soon, and it never reopened again in the same way. Once they had people's money, they would never give it back, just steer them to another program with new fees, requirements, etc. States vary in how much they really regulate agencies, and it is true that it isn't necessarily hard to become an agency.

A lot of it I would ascribe to incompetence more than greed. Agencies hook up with people who know or claim to know about a country, and they can be totally dependent on the expertise of someone who is ruthlessly dishonest, well-intentioned, or some combination. You sign with an agency but are at the whim of many factors you can't research or control.

This isn't to scare people off - really, just something that families need to get behind, is careful attention to adoption agencies and regulations. I think nail salons are better regulated in some places.

There are no guarantees with either one that the child is healthy or will arrive at all.  We adopted from China and our child is perfect.  When you adopt you are entitled to use the Adoption Tax Credit for the year the adoption is finalized.  We were able to use all 10K and put that money towards our loan we took out to pay our adoption fees and travel expenses.  So we only spent about 9K for our adoption.  Our plane tickets were the largest expense in our adoption.  The fees to China were very low and our fees to our agency was about 5K.  It was the US government fees and travel that was the bulk of our money.  Worth it all though and it was much cheaper than IVF would have been for us.  There are also very low interest adoption loans and grants for families in financial need.  Shoahannahs Hope offers such programs.  Ethiopia has a very low cost program right now, less than 10K for everything and it is very fast.  You turn around and get the adoption tax credit and you have spent nothing for the adoption.