April 17, 2007

And the qui tam jackpots just keep coming:

A onetime Illinois HMO was hammered with a $334 million judgment [last month], the largest of its kind ever in northern Illinois and an amount almost equal to the company's profits since it was founded....

The case, brought by a civil whistleblower and then joined by federal authorities and the state attorney general's office, charged that Amerigroup cherry-picked "healthies" and purposely avoided women in their third trimester of pregnancy because they cost more to insure....

The verdict nearly equals the $384 million in profit that Amerigroup has made since it was founded in 1994, Jenkins [company spokesman Kent Jenkins, Jr.] said....

Whistleblower Cleveland Tyson of Buffalo Grove, former vice president of government relations, will get 15 percent to 25 percent of the total award -- a benefit allowed under the Fraud Claims Act, designed to encourage whistleblowers.

Those of us who are not fond of qui tam/whistleblowing laws note that they reward informants and their lawyers far in excess of any plausible desert. In this case, Tyson would get $50 million to $83 million if the reported numbers hold up.