Walgreens Accused Of Scamming Taxpayers

Freedumb, Freedumb, Read All About It! In a world of exploding human population, with its myriad needs, wants and desires, the economy keeps falling, with more and more working people around the world, poorer, lacking basic needs and going hungry. Freakohnomics: The new 21st Century Supply & Demand Economics - absolute greed, absolute power brings on absolute madness - Turns into Freakohnomics gone berserk. Or mafia economics by deliberate Design - the greater the need, the higher the price of all commodities required to sustain Life. The Outcome, economic strangulation and workaholic enslavement of a people was not designed by the lord thy God, nor is it Nature's Law, nor a scientific law

The Deadly Dangers of a Mis-informed, Dis-informed & Un-informed Population, Ultimately to Itself, History Provides Ample Evidence.

The Solution: The Promise of New Energy Systems & Beyond Oil

Evaporates the Problem: The ill designed "Corporism: The Systemic Disease that Destroys Civilization." when lacking a Bill of Rights for Human Life

Mild shock and disbelief barely registered in the nation of the most productive, overworked, underpaid, underinsured, vacation deprived, low paid slave/workers in the world, as they watched their bridges fall down along with their retirement savings in equity & stocks, while their taxes, gas, energy and food costs continued skyrocketing to uncharted realms and many continue to lose their homes and go hungry; as the masses stagnated in unmovable traffic, and government departments threatened to close due to lack of funds - On the bright side, the worldwide corporate 2% greedy guts, individually, had aplenty, more wealth than 30 nations combined, apiece.... irrelevant to who is paying for their errors (as in subprime loans).

As common sense in science is lost with the continued stagnation of our energy base and deep troubling theoretical foundational issues in physics, so too, Civilization's Survival Parameters fly out of sight, out of mind, along with the values and morals inherent within new scientific understanding which new energy systems would reveal. Scientific Stagnation bodes an ill wind to evolution, sustainability, and survival as "cycles of humiliation, dumbing us down, violence, and Unrestrained Corporate Greed prompting resource wars with nuclear finality" join hands with global warming and ecological imbalance to precipitate the historical "rise and fall of civilization" - a Tsunami accelerating toward us with a far more spectacular event than the legends and myths of 'Atlantis and Lemuria"........ had more people known that Energy from Corn (or going backwards to a dimwitted concept of radioactive nuclear power application ) sounded a wee bit kindergartenish and senile for the twenty first century......the Future may have had a chance.




Walgreens Accused Of Scamming Taxpayers
CHICAGO, June 13, 2008
(CBS) It's America's biggest drugstore chain. “Beyond the reach of cell phones and superhighways, there’s a place called ‘perfect,’” rings the familiar ad for Walgreens. In a perfect world, however, Walgreens wouldn't be accused of ripping off taxpayers. But we're nowhere near perfect. CBS News investigative correspondent Sharyl Attkisson reports. Michael Behn, a former federal prosecutor, said, “The pharmacies nationwide had a pill flipping scheme.” Behn helped expose how Walgreens exploited a Medicaid loophole. To save taxpayer dollars, Medicaid limits how much it pays for popular forms of drugs. But it doesn't bother to set price-ceilings on rarely-used versions. Take generic Zantac, or ranitidine, for example. The antacid is a huge seller in tablet form. Medicaid limits payment to 34 cents apiece. The same drug as capsules has no price-ceiling because it was so rarely-prescribed. Medicaid pays $1.25 each. Walgreens figured it could pocket millions by switching patients from tablets to capsules. Behn explained to Attkisson, “These are the ranitidine capsules.” “This is what was being prescribed?” Attkisson asked, pointing to the tablets. “And this is what was being given?” pointing to the capsules. Behn replied, “Correct. At three times or more the cost to taxpayers,” Behn answered. The scheme was blown wide open by a whistleblower, a pharmacist who doesn’t want to appear on camera. He said Walgreens rigged its computers to automatically switch to the most expensive type of pill. “The only way in which a computer system could switch from a tablet and a capsule, is if someone went in and manipulated the computer system,” Behn said. Attkisson asked, “And the fact that this was done nationwide indicates this was a corporate policy?” Behn responded, “That’s what we alleged.” By gaming the system, Walgreens managed to change over almost all Medicaid customers from cheap generic Zantac tablets to pricy capsules. In Florida alone, it cost taxpayers an extra $1.2 million the first year. And the pill-switching went on for several years nationwide, including other prescriptions: generic Prozac (fluoxetine) for depression, and generic Eldepryl (selegiline) for Parkinson's. Walgreens denies wrongdoing and declined to be interviewed. But they recently agreed to pay back the government more than $35 million. And they're not the only ones. CVS and Omnicare quietly settled similar cases coughing up $86 million more. The whole pill-flipping episode proves just how imperfect some drugstore chains can be.
MMVIII, CBS Interactive Inc.