CVS Caremark Corp. will pay $36.7 million to settle allegations that it improperly switched customers to a more-expensive form of a drug paid for by Medicaid, the government program that provides health care to low-income people. A lawsuit alleging fraud by the chain-drugstore company was brought by an Illinois pharmacist and joined by the federal government and 23 states that paid for the medication.
The complaint, filed in 2003 in U.S. District Court for Northern Illinois, alleges CVS pharmacies switched Medicaid patients taking the generic form of stomach medication Zantac to capsules from tablets. Medicaid sets maximum reimbursement prices for the tablet form of the drug but not for capsules, which are more expensive but prescribed less frequently by doctors.
The suit alleges that the switch cost taxpayers as much as 400% more than what would have been paid for tablets. The pill-switching allegedly took place from April 1, 1999, through Dec. 31, 2006.
The case was brought by Bernard Lisitza, who worked as a pharmacist processing CVS prescriptions. Mr. Lisitza previously filed a suit against pharmacy company Omnicare Inc. that settled in 2006 for $50 million. Both suits were filed under the False Claims Act, which allows people to file claims alleging fraud against the government and lets them recover a share of any payments.
Mr. Lisitza received a $6.4 million share of the Omnicare settlement, according to a U.S. Justice Department news release. His attorney, Michael Behn, said his client's share of the CVS settlement will be $4.3 million.
What had me so upset, of course, was that I had not been the one to butcher this cash cow. Almost $11 million dollars this guy gets for taking down 2 corporations,
CVS, which had profit of $2.6 billion on revenue of $76.3 billion in 2007, said the settlement wouldn't have any effect on 2008 earnings.
Make that mildly inconveniencing 2 corporations, and the best I can do is clack away on my keyboard and see that the subject is about as interesting to you as my cat. Sigh.
I admit I do wonder why you don't seem to care that the nation's largest pharmacy chain by store count was gaming the Medicaid system for tens of millions of dollars. Because I sure don't have to go very far into the pharmacy blogosphere to find all manner of vitriol directed against the Medicaid baby momma trying to get some free Tylenol or cold medicine for her child, gaming the system for less than fifty bucks. It's all about wasting the taxpayers money you'll claim. That stupid baby momma should buy her own Tylenol.
Maybe you don't realize that tens of millions is bigger than fifty. Maybe it's time for a visual aid:
$36,700,000 -amount involved in CVS lawsuit.
$50 -amount involved with baby momma.
Or maybe it's not about protecting the taxpayer's money at all. Maybe it's about kicking the people you see as beneath you because it makes you feel better about yourself. Maybe you're afraid to kick upwards because you've been trained to stay in your place. Maybe you're so focused on kicking downwards you don't feel it when your social betters land their foot across your teeth. Or maybe you do feel it, and it just makes you kick down all the harder.
Or you're just really bad at math. One of the two.
