New York authorities charge 48 in massive Medicaid fraud

[sinkingfeeling]

http://www.cnn.com/2012/07/18/justice/new-york-drug-scheme/index.html?hpt=hp_t

New York (CNN) -- Federal prosecutors have charged 48 people in a massive fraud that allegedly bought HIV medications and other prescription drugs from Medicaid recipients and sold them to unsuspecting buyers.

The scheme cost tax payers $500 million, prosecutors said Tuesday.

Prosecutors said Medicaid beneficiaries in New York, including AIDS patients and others suffering from illnesses requiring expensive drugs, sold their prescriptions to some of the defendants for cash instead of using them for treatment.

Once Medicaid beneficiaries sold the drugs to other buyers, the latter marketed the pills to pharmacies and other wholesale prescription drug companies in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Florida, Texas, Massachusetts, Utah, Nevada, Louisiana and Alabama, according to authorities.

The FBI said it seized more than $16 million worth of prescription drugs -- 33,000 bottles and more than 250,000 loose pills, "kept in uncontrolled and sometimes egregious conditions" by some of the suspects.

[patrice]

1. I wonder if there aren't ant-government bigots out to destroy government programs from within.nt

[ParkieDem]

2. I wish the explanation were that simple ...

... but it's not. There are all sorts of unscrupulous people out there who see government programs - whatever their purpose - as an easy mark. Because the volume of funds in these programs (esp. Medicare and Medicaid) is so huge, it's relatively easy to keep something like this going without anyone noticing.