Drugmakers have paid $8 billion in fraud fines

[sinkingfeeling]

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/story/2012-03-05/health-drugmakers-fraud-fines/53372792/1?loc=interstitialskip

WASHINGTON – The nation's largest drugmakers have paid at least $8 billion in fines for repeatedly defrauding Medicare and Medicaid over the past decade, but they remain in business with the federal government because they are often the sole suppliers of critical products, records show.

Pfizer, the maker of drugs that help alleviate arthritis and other ailments, has paid almost $3 billion in fines since 2002 and entered into three corporate integrity agreements with the Department of Health and Human Services aimed at preventing future fraud. It and other companies are fighting attempts by Congress to exclude them from government business because of their history of fraud.

Government investigators say their hands are tied with the tools they have. They can exclude Pfizer and other pharmaceutical companies from providing medications to Medicaid and Medicare beneficiaries as punishment for bad behavior, but that would leave beneficiaries without drugs patented through a particular company.

Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, introduced a bipartisan bill that would make it easier for the government to find a middle ground, saying the law now forces "the inspector general to use all-or-nothing, mandatory exclusion penalties against corporations that have committed fraud." The bill would allow the exclusion of individuals from working with the government even after they've left the company where the fraud occurred.

Pharmaceutical companies altogether spent more than $200 million lobbying Congress in 2011, including $12 million spent by Pfizer. At least 12 pharmaceutical and medical device companies are lobbying specifically against a House bill, HR 675, that complements Grassley's.

[Scuba]

1. No, silly. Medicare/Medicaid fraud is when undeserving lazy people get benefits. Ask any Repuke.