Overlooking Big Pharma, Garland’s DOJ Announces Health Care Fraud Enforcement Action
Updated
In late June, the U.S. Department of Justice announced the 2024 National Health Care Fraud Enforcement Action, which recently indicted numerous doctors, nurse practitioners, and other licensed medical professionals in 32 federal districts across the country for allegedly participating in health care fraud schemes involving roughly $2.75 billion in intended losses and $1.6 billion in actual losses. In introducing its new 2024 Health Care Fraud Unit, the Justice Department noted that “health care fraud is a crime that impacts every American,” adding that “when health care providers and executives place greed above patients’ needs, it increases the cost of care for all Americans.”
While catching charlatans abusing and defrauding innocent Americans is a mission the Justice Department should absolutely concentrate on, its new unit might be better served going straight after Big Pharma and its corrupt network of under-the-table connections—yes, this includes the federal government—which are fast-tracking our nation to spiral into the most obese, unwell and heavily medicated country in the world. For a quick look at proof of the government/Big Pharma corruption ruse, look no further than the mRNA COVID-19 gene-damaging vaccine scam that commandeered our great nation and guaranteed a lifelong cache of new customers sharing a long list of bewildering ailments, turbo cancers, and disorders that have forever wrecked their lives.
But alas, under the Biden regime, expecting that kind of much-needed justice is not possible. In fact, it is predictable that Biden and his Justice Department shift their focus away from the actual crooks fueling corruption and disease in this country—again, Big Pharma and government agencies—and instead target the underlings who surely understand that when massive corruption already exists, it’s much easier to slip in and become a part of the game and, as long as they don’t get caught, make big bucks doing so.
The latest round of Justice Department indictments is chock full of fraud. It follows the June 13 arrest of Ruthie He, the Founder/CEO and Clinical President of the digital health company Done, a pill-pushing racket to distribute Adderall over the internet that made her millions. The most recent indictment, occurring on June 27, 2024, involves numerous other Done employees scattered across the country, including a Florida nurse practitioner who prescribed over 1.5 million stimulants without proper patient interaction.
Additionally, as with the hospitalization, intubation, and forced vaccination of the elderly during the COVID-19 pandemic (which most often resulted in them dying alone), four individuals in the District of Arizona were charged with orchestrating over $900 million in false and fraudulent claims to Medicare for amniotic wound grafts used on Medicare patients. According to the indictment, the defendants targeted elderly patients, many terminally ill, and caused unnecessary and expensive amniotic grafts to be applied to patients for superficial wounds that did not need to be treated and in sizes that far exceeded the size of the wound. Incredibly, in just 16 months, Medicare paid two defendants over $600 million due to the illegal scheme, paying on average over one million dollars per patient for the unneeded grafts. Yes, this is criminal but so was their inhumane treatment during the pandemic.
The crooks didn’t just follow the lead of Big Pharma in defrauding the elderly. They went after those addicted to alcohol and drugs, too. The indictment includes charges filed in the District of Arizona and Southern District of Florida against four defendants in connection with more than $146 million of allegedly false and fraudulent claims for services for vulnerable patients seeking addiction treatment. As alleged in one of the indictments, one defendant paid kickbacks in exchange for the referral of patients recruited from the homeless population and Native American reservations. She then fraudulently billed Arizona Medicaid for substance abuse treatment services that were either never provided or were provided at a level that was so substandard that it failed to serve any treatment purpose. The defendant is charged with money laundering offenses for her extravagant purchases resulting from the scam, as well as obstruction of justice for falsifying records in response to a grand jury subpoena for documents, according to the charges.
The burgeoning telemedicine industry, spawned into life thanks to COVID lockdowns, was the scene for over $1.1 billion in fraudulent claims related to unnecessary genetic testing and little to no patient interactions. The results of these genetic tests—which were supposed to detect genetic mutations that could indicate an elevated risk of cancer, cardiovascular disease, Parkinson’s disease, and other serious illnesses—were not used in the patients’ treatment. Other telemedicine plots included unsealing a complaint in the Eastern District of Virginia against a psychiatrist who allegedly submitted fraudulent claims based on almost zero patient interactions, including for visits that lasted between 10 to 30 seconds. Remember, we can thank 23andMe for helping these criminals have access to the information that enabled them to attack innocent Americans.
As corrupt Big Pharma continues to control everything from government agencies devouring taxpayer money to the mainstream media shaping the narrative followed by the masses—while making crooks like Anthony Fauci and Stephan Bancel obscenely wealthy—these indictments aren’t enough. There are bigger crooks out there that need to be eliminated. When announcing the June 27 indictments, Attorney General Merrick B. Garland declared:
“It does not matter if you are a trafficker in a drug cartel or a corporate executive or medical professional employed by a health care company, if you profit from the unlawful distribution of controlled substances, you will be held accountable.
The Justice Department will bring to justice criminals who defraud Americans, steal from taxpayer-funded programs, and put people in danger for the sake of profits.”
Put your money where your mouth is Mr. Garland. Big Pharma is free after committing the most grandiose health care fraud scheme on the American people in recent history. If you’re going to talk the talk, then you must walk the walk. Thanks for catching and calling out these hoodlums. Now, for the sake of the American people, move on to the real problem. Put an end to the power of Big Pharma.