DeWine joins call for return of fraud $$

Submitted information

COLUMBUS — Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine was joined by 50 attorneys general in calling for congressional action to fix a quirk in federal law that prevents states from receiving equitable shares of health care fraud recoveries. The letter, co-written by DeWine and North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein, was sent to United States Senators Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) and Ron Wyden (D-Oregon), the chairman and ranking member, respectively, of the Senate Finance Committee.

The letter urges the Senate to adopt legislation to allow the United States Treasury to return to states’ money from health care fraud recoveries that, through a statutory quirk, are not currently being returned to states. Medicaid is jointly funded by states and the federal government. After the establishment of the Medicare Part D prescription drug benefit, Medicare began directly paying for prescription benefits for persons eligible for both Medicare and Medicaid, also called dual eligibles.

While historically, fraud recoveries from Medicaid drug benefits were shared between the states and federal government, the federal government believes current law prohibits it from sharing fraud recoveries involving Medicare Part D dual eligibles with states due to the way the federal statutes are drafted, even though the program is jointly funded by the states and federal government.

“We therefore strongly urge you to consider appropriate legislation authorizing the federal government to return an equitable share of Part D recoveries to the states,” DeWine and the attorneys general wrote in their letter.

Over the last 10 years, the federal government has recovered tens of millions of dollars in pharmaceutical fraud settlements involving Part D drugs.

In addition to Ohio and North Carolina, the letter was signed by the attorneys general of Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Puerto Rico, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, and Wisconsin.

A copy of the letter is available on the Ohio Attorney General’s website.