20 largest cases of companies bilking the government.

via skippy the bush kangaroo:

These are pikers, unrepentant white collar criminals.The same people who fuel the lunatic right wingnuts.

1) tenet healthcare -- $900,000,000 under the false claims act
in july 2006, tenet healthcare (formerly known as nme, see #9 on this list) agreed to pay the federal government $900 million for billing violations that include manipulation of outlier payments to medicare, as well as kickbacks, upcoding, and bill padding.

2) hca -- $731,400,000 under the false claims act
in december 2000, hca the healthcare company (formerly known as columbia hca), the largest for-profit hospital chain in the united states, pled guilty to criminal conduct and agreed to pay more than $840 million in criminal fines, civil penalties and damages for unlawful billing practices. ....note that the december 2000 agreement does not resolve allegations that hca unlawfully charged the u.s government for the costs of running its hospitals, and that it paid kickbacks to physicians to get medicare and medicaid patients referred to its facilities.

3) hca -- $631,000,000 under the false claims act
in june 2003, hca, inc. (formerly known as columbia/hca and hca the healthcare company) agreed to pay the united states $631 million in civil penalties and damages arising from false claims submitted to medicare and other federal health programs.

read on






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...a reminder from Naomi Klein via Buzzflash:

Republicans Use Chaos as a Shock Doctrine to Create Authoritarian Rule



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