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DOJ Charges Hundreds with $2 Billion in Health-Care Fraud Login/Join 
I believe in the
principle of
Due Process
Picture of JALLEN
posted
National Review
Mairead Mcardle

The Justice Department announced the arrests of hundreds of people Thursday on charges of health-care fraud totaling $2 billion. Of the 601 people charged, 165 were licensed medical professionals, many of whom are alleged to have exacerbated the opioid epidemic to make an illegal profit.

“Some of our most trusted medical professionals look at their patients — vulnerable people suffering from addiction — and they see dollar signs,” Attorney General Jeff Sessions said in a statement released by the DOJ. “Virtually every health care fraud scheme requires a corrupt medical professional to be involved,” added Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar in the same statement.

The defendants are accused of submitting fraudulent claims to Medicare, Medicaid, TRICARE, and private insurance companies for unnecessary treatments, including many that were never provided. A substantial number of the charges involved the unlawful distribution of opioids and other prescription painkillers. In one case, three employees of a pharmacy chain in Texas are alleged to have fraudulently filled bulk orders of more than 1 million hydrocodone and oxycodone pills and sold them for millions of dollars to drug transporters.

“Health care fraud is a betrayal of vulnerable patients, and often it is theft from the taxpayer,” Sessions said in the statement. “In many cases, doctors, nurses, and pharmacists take advantage of people suffering from drug addiction in order to line their pockets.”

“The perpetrators really are despicable and greedy people,” Azar said at a press conference.

The Trump administration has promised to prioritize its response to the opioid crisis, and Sessions touted the arrests as the “largest health care fraud enforcement action in American history” in his statement.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that 115 Americans a day die from opioid-related overdoses, and more than 42,000 died from overdoses in 2016.

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Luckily, I have enough willpower to control the driving ambition that rages within me.

When you had the votes, we did things your way. Now, we have the votes and you will be doing things our way. This lesson in political reality from Lyndon B. Johnson

"Some things are apparent. Where government moves in, community retreats, civil society disintegrates and our ability to control our own destiny atrophies. The result is: families under siege; war in the streets; unapologetic expropriation of property; the precipitous decline of the rule of law; the rapid rise of corruption; the loss of civility and the triumph of deceit. The result is a debased, debauched culture which finds moral depravity entertaining and virtue contemptible." - Justice Janice Rogers Brown
 
Posts: 48369 | Location: Texas hill country | Registered: July 04, 2005Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Tinker Sailor Soldier Pie
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Two huge problems in this country are the opioid crisis and our insane medical care costs. This action by the DOJ and Sessions goes after these scumbags who perpetuate both. I applaud them for it.


~Alan

Acta Non Verba
NRA Life Member (Patron)
God, Family, Guns, Country

Men will fight and die to protect women... because women protect everything else. ~Andrew Klavan

 
Posts: 31171 | Location: Elv. 7,000 feet, Utah | Registered: October 29, 2012Reply With QuoteReport This Post
I believe in the
principle of
Due Process
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posted Hide Post
quote:
Originally posted by Balzé Halzé:
Two huge problems in this country are the opioid crisis and our insane medical care costs. This action by the DOJ and Sessions goes after these scumbags who perpetuate both. I applaud them for it.


It causes one to wonder what all good they could do if they were not burdened and distracted with all this Russian collusion nonsense, and the concomitant investigations, etc.




Luckily, I have enough willpower to control the driving ambition that rages within me.

When you had the votes, we did things your way. Now, we have the votes and you will be doing things our way. This lesson in political reality from Lyndon B. Johnson

"Some things are apparent. Where government moves in, community retreats, civil society disintegrates and our ability to control our own destiny atrophies. The result is: families under siege; war in the streets; unapologetic expropriation of property; the precipitous decline of the rule of law; the rapid rise of corruption; the loss of civility and the triumph of deceit. The result is a debased, debauched culture which finds moral depravity entertaining and virtue contemptible." - Justice Janice Rogers Brown
 
Posts: 48369 | Location: Texas hill country | Registered: July 04, 2005Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Step by step walk the thousand mile road
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JAllen you are the only other person I've seen use the word "concomitant."

My respects, sir.





Nice is overrated

"It's every freedom-loving individual's duty to lie to the government."
Airsoftguy, June 29, 2018
 
Posts: 32374 | Location: Loudoun County, Virginia | Registered: May 17, 2006Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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The DOJ loves to throw around overstated figures like these. It is certainly no secret the pill mills for opiates have existed for a LONG time, and yet the government has paid little attention. It is now politically popular to look like you are doing something. Anyone not sponsoring a bill to deal with the "opiate crisis" is missing a political opportunity.
 
Posts: 17706 | Location: Stuck at home | Registered: January 02, 2015Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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And rest assured that about 20% (124 out of 601) of those arrested are from South Florida.
 
Posts: 67 | Location: Boca Raton FL | Registered: April 13, 2017Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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Let the games begin!


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Life is short. It’s shorter with the wrong gun…
 
Posts: 13873 | Location: VIrtual | Registered: November 13, 2009Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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