CEO of Health Care Software Company Sentenced for $1b Fraud Conspiracy
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The sentencing of a 79-year-old CEO to 15 years in prison for a $1 billion healthcare fraud conspiracy has sparked a mix of reactions, ranging from cautious optimism to cynicism about the justice system's effectiveness. While some commenters, like AndrewKemendo, welcomed the news as a rare positive development, others, such as Cipater and atmavatar, expressed skepticism about the CEO's punishment, pointing out that he was required to pay back less than half of the stolen amount and might still have enough money to influence his fate. The discussion took a darker turn with mentions of potential pardons and the influence of money on justice, with some commenters, like fpierfed, referencing past instances of healthcare executives being pardoned, and others, like hermannj314, jokingly wondering if one can even bet on such an outcome. Amidst the debate, the thread highlights the ongoing concerns about the intersection of money, power, and justice in the US healthcare system.
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It’s something at least.
From there, of course, it's a short hop to "he has more than enough money left over to purchase himself a pardon."
Despite the post-sentenced opportunities, insurance still works much better when paid for up front.
I wish all headlines read like this instead of "here's why you should be scared"
President Trump loves to pardon white collar criminals in exchange for donations. It is his whole thing and well documented.
I also expect the new East Wing Ballroom will not be built this term and the donations will mysteriously disappear with the next administration.
But on the bright side when Dems win the midterms they will spend the rest of his term investigating and impeaching him, which will be amusing if nothing else.
But speaking of snark why are you so upset? Trump has form pardoning people for purely political reasons and for personal gain of various kinds.
They'll get doctors as well? Hopefully they are part of the co-conspirators group they mentioned at the start. Criminals are going to be criminal, but it's especially disheartening when doctors engage in this. All those years going to school should be canceled and thrown into the trash immediately if they get convicted of these kinds of crimes. The path of ever being a doctor should be closed for them.
This is just a step adjacent to the online pill mills for ED medication, GLP-1s, and ketamine, only the advertising and service delivery has been adapted to the elderly that don't use the Internet.
Instead of ads online it's ads on daytime television bragging for free orthopedic supports and braces at no charge to you if you "call today" while they link you up to someone that signs a prefilled script for fifty bucks a pop to bill out to Medicare.
At some point, recovery needs to take a back seat to deterrence.
You mean the owners and management and employees? Because a "business" in the way it's being suggested isn't a human with emotions or feelings, you can't "deter" a legal construct...
Maybe answerable ones, if the deterrence theory works out! But I don’t understand who it is that’s supposed to be getting punished or deterred. The owners are losing the business anyway, what do they care if you put the assets to productive use or not?
(As, perhaps, they should be.)
Easy solution: fire (and imprison) the executives, sell off the entire company, leave the owners/investors with nothing.
That sets a proper incentive for shareholders to not send yes-men or people with a dozen or more other well-paid low-effort board memberships into corporate boards but people actually willing and capable of controlling the executive.
Imprisoning executives is rare enough (you gotta piss off the truly rich for that, e.g. Madoff or Benko), but seizing and selling off an entire company from its prior owners is something I haven't even heard of.
What can happen is that a company crashes down due to fines and/or public pressure, but that's not the same.
It used to be that "company reputation" was part of the value of a stock certificate. That disappeared at some point when the primary value of a stock became its nature of being a white collar lottery ticket.
And no, the severity of the crime does not (IMHO) justify it.
Right now the punishment is confinement. When you add effectively unpaid labour in prison as part of acceptable punishment, you're also paving the way for a future where unpaid labor as a standalone punishment is also acceptable. That's just slavery by law.
Except for some rare cases, I think you'll find that the cost of keeping an inmate in prison for a day makes it that you never break even
Inside a prison, should they not have a similar responsibility? They commit a crime and as such are held in stasis? Should they not at least carry the burden of themselves
I know of prison ran machine shops that were doing die-casting and tool production. I also heard of one (didn't see) that was doing basket weaving for a floral/arrangement company.
these are shallow 'social benefits'; but the companies were privately owned.
I guess the classic example is license plate pressing.. I guess that's a social good? I don't know if it goes on at all anymore.
I don't think there's enough jobs in prisons that need physical labour where they can cover the costs. You would then have to train them in useful skills but incompetence is not a crime so you cannot penalize those who "cannot learn/do" skilled work.
Other alternative is to make them work the same job they did outside but that is a slippery slope with lot of potential for abuse.
At that point it really is just slavery, which they can already do as protected in the US Constitution.
(I’m not arguing for this. I agree with restitution and believe that sentences longer than a certain point are also pointless and a net negative to society.)
Hypothetically let's say govt is allowed to use unpaid labour outside menial tasks and the prison system is setup in a way to efficiently utilize the skills of their labour pool and is allowed to outsource their skills to private entities at attractive rate for covering prison costs (i.e. more money left for govt spending)
E.g. tradesmen employed on their related jobs. A programmer employed in software jobs or a technician "loaned" to a nearby lab etc.
Don't you think the local/state governments will then have incentive to fill their pool with "missing" talent according to the job requirements.
"The stated goal of the Swedish prison system is to create a safer society by reducing recidivism and rehabilitating offenders rather than focusing solely on punishment. This is achieved through humane treatment, education, and reintegration programs designed to prepare prisoners for life after release."
AMENDMENT XIII
Section 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.
https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/13th-amendment
The constitution isn't a holy book, it's some opinions someone wrote down on paper. Some of them might be wrong.
Federal prisons pay roughly $0.12 to $0.40 per hour for regular jobs, which isn’t much better.
The hypocrisy of the US is breathtaking sometimes, and the current administration has the gall to criticise europe.
There is no research I’m aware of on people for whom the prospect of punishment did act as a deterrent (i.e. people who decided not to commit the crime).
So I argue that there is a very big selection bias in literature surrounding the effectiveness of punishment as a deterrent .
Surely this can’t be true - as a trivial example I would be surprised if removing parking fines wouldn’t increase parking violations, or if Singapore stopped punishing littering that it wouldn’t affect the amount of littering etc
While I agree that people conducting corporate fraud think they will get away with it - I don't agree that the long sentences won't act as a deterrence. If you set the sentence for these sorts of crimes to 1 year rather than 15+, that completely changes the risk profile for people who think there is a 90% chance they will get away with it.
Sentence length has a small effect on crime rates, but what really matters is enforcement levels. If you have a 99% chance of getting caught & punished, you don't bother.
I think this just highlights how stupid the idea is that punishment doesn’t act as a deterrent
Your assertion is not the slam dunk you think it is.
Punishment absolutely works as deterrent. Boy I know people that would absolutely forge the tax declaration, if it wasn't a terrible fine if they do!
The key point is the probability of the punishment being enforced. There is a trade off calculation going on, like "I could get 5 years prison and 10 grand fine... IF they catch me!". Studies suggest, that if you have 100% probability of being caught, then the punishment is extremely good deterrent.
I think when money is involved that sort of stuff is much more likely.
Of course, those prisoners aren’t billionaire healthcare CEOs, so maybe not…
However, I don't think it's practical to get fraudsters to pay back all the money in most cases as they won't be able to. What we need is a faster way to detect and imprison fraudsters to limit the damage they do. Also, most people don't respond to the "size" of punishments, but more to the likelihood that they will be caught.
The discussion around billionaires needs to move away from taxing their income and beyond taxing their wealth. We need to start talking about how much of their wealth we should be taking away. Light it on fire or delete it. The whole world will be better off.
1. Arrest and convict scammer 2. Scammer pays bribe from ill gotten gains 3. POTUS profits and scammer let out of jail
where was the FBI for the last 40 years? or did he really just go postal post-covid?
Here's what to watch: how long it takes for a donation to show up to the Trump library and how soon after that the sentence is commutted. This has erased roughly $1 billion in penalties so far since January 20. Hell, it might only take $1 million.
[1]: https://www.justice.gov/archive/opa/pr/2003/June/03_civ_386....
If only the big scams are being caught (and we don't know what % are being caught), there's likely a lot more going undetected.