Carmel, CA: Pharmaceutical Companies Have Paid $8 Billion In Fines For Defrauding Medicare and Medic

Carmel, CA: Pharmaceutical Companies Have Paid $8 Billion In Fines For Defrauding Medicare & Medicaid (Medi-Cal): View From A Private Duty Caregiver Serving Carmel, Carmel Valley, Carmel-by-the-Sea, Gilroy, Gonzalez, Greenfield, Hollister, King City, Marina, Monterey, Pacific Grove, Pebble Beach, Salinas, San Juan Bautista, Seaside And Soledad California Medicare Fraud made the front page of the newspaper again today, with USA Today pointing out that the nation's largest pharmaceutical companies have paid more than $8 billion in fines for repeatedly defrauding Medicare and Medicaid over the past ten years, yet they stay in business. In fact, business is booming. How can this be? Many of these companies are the sole providers of important patented drugs and therefore the government would prefer to charge them a big fine and let them go on their merry way rather than put them out of business. The article highlighted drug giant Pfizer, which has paid $3 billion in fines since 2002 and entered into three corporate integrity agreement with the Department of Health and Human Services aimed at fighting fraud. Pfizer is now fighting efforts from Congress which would exclude them from doing business with Medicare, Medi-Cal and other government entities because of their tattered history. Sadly, they aren't alone. Merck has paid $1.6 billion in fines. Unfortunately, there is no simple solution although the government is trying a new tactic since fines don't seem to be a big enough deterrent for many companies. The new plan is to go after executives within the company personally. In addition, the Justice Department is considering threatening companies which are repeatedly violating the law with the loss of their patents. Companies would be required to give up their rights to certain valuable patents as part of a settlement with the DOJ in addition to the fine. Otherwise, they could be permanently barred from doing business with Medicare and Medi-Cal, which would be financially devastating. Now that would be a deterrent. http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/story/2012-03-05/health-drugmakers-fraud-fines/53372792/1About Richard Kuehn & Family inHome Caregiving of Monterey:After more than a decade of caregiving, both in a professional environment and for a 97 year old family member I was dissatisfied with service from local caregiving agencies. I became convinced of the need for a service which provides very personal assistance to elderly and founded Family inHome Caregiving serving the Monterey Peninsula. Please visit my blog where I talk about important senior issues at:http://www.familyinhomecaregiving.com/Blog