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Man Who Bribed Son into Penn Guilty in $1.3B Health Fraud

125 points by jonwachob91 8y ago

ourmandave 8y ago
Me: "Man, the Pharmabro, Martin Shkreli was convicted of fraud in the millions and raised the price on Daraprim 5000%. Is there bigger more entitled asshole who could not be more hated?" Philip Esformes: "Hold my beer..."
- toomuchtodo 8y ago
  Shkreli made all of his investors whole, and put a program in place that you could get Daraprim at minimal cost if you couldn’t afford it. He raised prices on those who could pay: insurance companies. I love a deserved smear, but Shkreli doesn’t deserve half as much as what he got from the uneducated public, nor his unnecessarily long jail sentence.
  - dgzl 8y ago
    His interview with The Breakfast Club was good, better than they give him credit.
  - lisper 8y ago
    > He raised prices on those who could pay: insurance companies. I cannot imagine a more tone-deaf defense of this scoundrel. Where exactly do you think insurance companies get their money?
    - toomuchtodo 8y ago
      Are you locking up all of the other pharma CEOs who do it? That’s the difference between justice and outrage porn. I’m not saying he did nothing wrong (some jail time and monetary penalty was in order, but not the severity that was issued). I take issue that he was sacrificed for the public because of his brash showmanship, and the broken system marches on with little complaint. Epi Pen and insulin manufacturer execs still walk free, and they did far worse.
      - lisper 8y ago
        > Are you locking up all of the other pharma CEOs who do it? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_quoque https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_quoque
        toomuchtodo 8y ago
        Pointing out a lack of proportionality in dealing out punishment through the justice system is not appealing to hypocrisy IMHO. Quite the contrary: to not point it out allows for a "free for all". I challenge the belief that prison time should be issued based on actions that aren't crimes, versus actual crime committed. The sentencing guidelines were clear for the fraud Shkreli committed; they were thrown out the window and the public cheered. That is not justice, and we (the public) are remiss for not critiquing how the system worked as part of the larger issue that is prison and justice reform. We must not be so cavalier with years of someone's life, years they will never get back. Being obnoxious is not a crime.
        lisper 8y ago
        But that's not the part of your argument I was criticizing. It may well be that Shkreli got a disproportionate punishment simply because he's an asshole. I'm not taking a position on that. What I was talking about is this: > He raised prices on those who could pay: insurance companies. With the implication that that makes what he did OK. Well, it doesn't. One way or another, the costs get passed on to consumers and taxpayers, which is to say, everyone. Spreading the pain so that it is not immediately apparent to any one individual doesn't change that. It is simply not the case that insurance companies are independent wealthy entities who "can pay" without any negative consequences to anyone else. It is in no small measure this mistaken assumption that has led to the mess that the U.S. health care system is currently in.
        toomuchtodo 8y ago
        Why is it not okay to raise the price to what the market (insurance companies) will pay? How else would you expect the market clearing price to be determined (Conservatives in Congress implemented legislation prohibiting Medicare from negotiating drug prices with pharma companies)? Every day healthcare providers are finding ways to extract as much as possible from payers (insurance companies, Medicare, Medicaid); this is not illegal. Immoral? Sure, I'll bite and state it's wrong, but entirely economically rational in the current broken system. What makes Shrekli's transgressions particularly bothersome? He put the issue in the spotlight for the American public to see (with much bravado), front and center, and he's the bad guy for showing the system is broken? What he did was entirely legal, and in no way should've impacted his fraud sentencing. But exacting revenge on a single person (through overly punitive prison sentencing) does nothing to fix systemic issues. Someone with talent that could be redirected in a positive way (his financial analysis and engineering acumen is proven) is cooling his heels in a jail cell for years, and the American healthcare system is as broken as it was before. I've seen happen before [1], and was just as dismayed with how the person in question was treated relative to the severity of the crime(s). [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_Mitnick#Computer_hacking https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_Mitnick#Computer_hacking
    - darkpuma 8y ago
      De Niro characer in Heat: > "We want to hurt no one. We're here for the bank's money, not your money. Your money is insured by the federal government, you're not gonna lose a dime. Think of your families, don't risk your life. Don't try and be a hero." Is that tone deaf, or might it work? I bet it would work. When the financial harm is spread out thin, people take it less personally. That's why people regularly fight back against muggers, but we very rarely see anybody take vigilante action against hospitals, the pharma industry or insurance companies when hospitals charge $10+ for a single aspirin pill and insurance companies spread that harm thin.
      - nerdponx 8y ago
        Your money is insured by the federal government And where does the federal government get their money? It's stealing from taxpayers.
        mikeyouse 8y ago
        Nah, FDIC receives $0 in appropriations from the Federal Government - it's funded by premiums that the banks pay and from earnings on US treasury deposits.
        nerdponx 8y ago
        I did not know that. Thanks.
      - lisper 8y ago
        It's tone deaf. It's based on a false belief about how money works. In fact, it's based on the exact same false belief that /u/toomuchtodo's defense of Shrkeli is based on. Yes, it's true that the federal government insures deposits, and so the loss from the theft from the bank will not be borne by the depositors directly. But the government has to get its money from somewhere too, and there are only two possible places it can get it: through taxation, or by printing it. If it uses tax money to cover the losses then the losses are borne by tax payers, and if it prints the money then the losses are borne by everyone via the resulting inflation. > When the financial harm is spread out thin, people take it less personally. That is certainly true, but that doesn't make it any less harmful. In fact, it is precisely the thin spreading of the harm that causes people to be complacent about the real underlying problems. The result is that by the time people become aware of the problems again, they have become much more serious and concomitantly more difficult to solve (c.f. the 2008 financial crisis).
  - adrr 8y ago
    Shkreli is a prime example of our broken criminal justice system. His investors didn't lose money even though he did provide fraudulent information to raise capital. Companies during the home loan crisis provided fake info(eg: fake income) to qualify for the home loans. And they got away with non-prosecution agreements and just fines. People's life savings were wiped out during the crisis.
    - paulgb 8y ago
      > His investors didn't lose money even though he did provide fraudulent information to raise capital. There are things broken with the way the criminal justice system judges the severity of crimes, but the idea that fraud shouldn’t be punished so long as investors get their money back leads to an even worse system.
    - mikeyouse 8y ago
      He stole money from one group of investors, gambled with that money in a new company (while lying about it on all of the relevant financial statements) and eventually made the original investors whole --- if you ignore the profits that he made by using their money illegally. Why on Earth do people defend that scumbag? Because he had some Livestreams? If you rob a bank, spend all that money on lottery tickets, then leave a sack of money for the exact amount you stole in the lobby after getting lucky, do you think everything should be copacetic? 1. You still robbed the bank! 2. Gambling with someone else's money isn't virtuous.
      - darkpuma 8y ago
        Are you really this angry at him over illegal accounting/investing? Or are you using that as an excuse because you're actually angry at him over what he did with daraprim? I think many people defend him because they suspect people claiming to be mad about the former are actually mad about the later. Edit: > "So people are defending him on #1 because they think other people are too mad about #2? " Yes that's my belief. Imagine Mel Gibson was caught bringing weed into an authoritarian SEA country, and was sentenced to caning. Now imagine there were people celebrating that sentencing, because Mel Gibson is a racist. In this hypothetical, is he a drug smuggling racist? Yes. I wager you'd see people defend him though, and accuse people celebrating his caning as being biased by his racism.
  - deanalevitt 8y ago
    Shkreli himself played a deliberate role in the public's perception of him. I've always wondered why but I suspect it was pig-headedness.
- JCharante 8y ago
  Martin Shkreli is not an asshole, he's a role model. You have merely fallen for the propaganda.
  - ourmandave 8y ago
    You forgot the /s (I hope).
    - creddit 8y ago
      Unfortunately, many people have been memed into believing Shkreli is a Good Guy™ and that he did nothing wrong.
      - scarejunba 8y ago
        It's a fascinating glimpse into the minds of conspiracy theorists. The "you've been duped" bit. The "actual hero" and the shadowy villains who "do the same". Fascinating. Inconsistent but such an enduring belief.
- hervature 8y ago
  It is easy to demonize Shkreli when you look at the 5000% number. But what he did was sell 1 pill for half the price of a bottle with 100 pills. This sounds bad until you consider most hospitals were throwing out the bottles completely unused before the expiry date. Most hospitals were happy because now they were only wasting half as much money.
  - ourmandave 8y ago
    It is easy to demonize Shkreli when you look at the 5000% number. Yes, it is. Very easy. And why would a hospital buy so many pills if they knew they're eventually going to throw them away by the 100s? And what supplier only sells low demand pills by the 100 count?
    - hervature 8y ago
      Hospitals HAVE to buy the pills because they need to be able to handle rare conditions if they occur. Shkreli FIXED the issue of only supplying 100 counts by offering a 1 count option. But obviously the overhead of manufacturing is the largest component of pill production. So he couldn't reduce the price by dividing by 100.
      - Thorrez 8y ago
        What costs are the overhead of manufacturing? The packaging? The packaging shouldn't cost ($750-$13.50) = $736.50.
        hervature 8y ago
        Setting up the factory, R&D for the drug itself, etc.
  - nerdponx 8y ago
    That's like saying refugees in the US should be grateful they were detained without recourse, rather than detained and beaten.
cs702 8y ago
One of the things that struck me the most as I read about the college bribery scandal is that many if not all the parents involved acted as if bribing people, falsifying records, doctoring photographs, etc. were things that "everyone else was doing to get ahead in the admissions game" and therefore they could justify and rationalize it as necessary. At a minimum, they can at least claim they did it for their children. I don't know how anyone could ever justify and rationalize stealing money from the elderly and taxpayers. It seems so wrong; indefensible, really. Jeez...
- mdanger007 8y ago
  Projection is something the good and bad do. There really is a battle of dark and light you see in mythology and centers on people's psychological need to project their actions as the norm.
- austincheney 8y ago
  Fraud is wrong. Rationalizing it away as a fashion isn’t justifiable. Both types of fraud you point to are no different for me.
  - x0x0 8y ago
    Why? One of the US attorneys wasting our federal tax dollars prosecuting the parents even pointed it out: they bribed the college the wrong way, by not buying them a building like they were supposed to. "We're not talking about donating a building...we're talking about fraud." So the injured parties here are the universities, and their complaint is they got cut out on the bribe dollars. Which is fine and all, but I don't understand at all why that's our problem. That's the universities' problems, and they should feel free to sue their employees for not sharing bribes appropriately. Health care fraud actually hurts people and steals from the federal government, so there's two good reasons to spend our resources prosecuting it.
    - philips 8y ago
      I believe the problem was the personal donation for the fraud was structured as a tax deductible non-profit donation.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
0815test 8y ago
Alternative title: "Florida Man's $1.3B Health Fraud Was 'The Largest Ever'"
eatbitseveryday 8y ago
> Esformes made off with at least $37 million for himself from 1998 to 2016, according to prosecutors, using the money to finance a lavish lifestyle of fancy cars and a $360,000 watch. 18 years this went on?? This is what surprised me the most.
- mikeash 8y ago
  There’s little motivation for law enforcement to search for white collar crime, and little support for prosecuting it. Look at the indictments produced by the Mueller investigation. Politics aside, some of those people were doing real shady shit for years, and they would have gotten away with it cleanly had they not gotten entangled with the campaign.
  - pm90 8y ago
    Counter-argument: none of the shady shit they'd done had enough of an effect to interest law enforcement, right until they got control of the Presidency. It seems to make sense to me now. All the fear mongering over immigrants and drugs flooding across the border when an American company (Purdue Pharma) engineered the worst actual drug epidemic in generations makes me wonder about the effectiveness of spending literally billions on the "War on Drugs" while not addressing the real issues.
    - mikeash 8y ago
      I don’t think that’s a counter argument, just a specific example of what I said in my first paragraph.
      - pm90 8y ago
        What you say in your first paragraph: > There’s little motivation for law enforcement to search for white collar crime, and little support for prosecuting it. How is what I said a specific example of this?
        8y ago
JMTQp8lwXL 8y ago
Why do wealthy people need to even buy admission for their children into elite schools? Don't they have enough independent wealth to support not only themselves, but their children, as well? With that kind of money, their children really don't need to cultivate careers... and even if they wanted to, surely they could do it the old fashioned way? And if they fail, parents can bail them out? Or is it primarily driven by greed, and the parents want the kids to make a lot of money, so the family has even greater wealth?
- alexpetralia 8y ago
  I think they do it for the prestige/status. This is generally what people want wealth for anyway, above a certain life-sustaining amount.
  - JMTQp8lwXL 8y ago
    What is the point of prestige/status if it isn't even real? It's like they're sending their kids to Stanford for the Instagram likes they'll get.
    - musicale 8y ago
      What is surprising about seeking status (or more importantly avoiding status loss) in the eyes of your peers?
      - JMTQp8lwXL 8y ago
        It's funny how the 20-somethings of the well-off seemingly have the skills and experience to take on key leadership roles, that their peers somehow would have to take decades to ascend to. It's "status" but anybody can look at say, Ivanka Trump for example, and see right through it.
        JetSpiegel 8y ago
        > anybody The people that matter can't, that's their target. By which I mean, other socialites.
musicale 8y ago
It is well known that colleges often give special consideration to children of alumni, largely for the purpose of encouraging and sustaining financial contributions. They usually justify it by noting that it brings money into the school and allows them to offer better financial aid. I think they would do well to simply state some students are admitted based on whether they bring something worthwhile to the college, including but not limited to: academic achievement, artistic accomplishment, athletic prowess, background diversity, gender balance, interest diversity, and financial contribution/desirability, but if students graduate from the school then they have probably proven that they are at least minimally qualified to attend. It has never been a level playing field, and there are always qualified students who are rejected for reasons completely beyond their control. One bit of consolation for those rejected from all of their elite schools is that it may be easier to excel at a non-elite college, improving your chances for admission to an elite graduate program. And seriously, who really wants to pay $50K+ a year to a college/country club only to be saddled with crippling student loan debt after graduation, debt that even bankruptcy cannot expunge?
dr_ 8y ago
This is stunning in its scope and made me wonder in what other developed country is it even possible for a citizen to defraud its government of over 1 billion dollars? The skilled nursing system in this country is broken, with no meaningful oversight other than an annual inspection which everyone knows is coming. Lengths of stay are unnecessarily long and the quality of care is unbelievably sub par. Despite all of this, fraud at this level is pretty astounding, and should serve as a wake up call for the government to more aggressively monitor all facilities, or outsource monitoring from the States to private agencies.
- jamra 8y ago
  Skilled therapy is changing though. PDPM doesn’t reimburse through the amount of therapy provided. It reimburses by the need of the patient. I believe nursing is included in that budget
  - dr_ 8y ago
    that was what the RUGs were supposed to do, but it was easily gamed and I don’t see why this wouldn’t be either. The only advantage it offers, IMO, is that it allows patients with a greater variety of needs (like more nursing skill and less or no therapy) to receive care. For example, the end stage cancer patient who can’t withstand much therapy but isn’t ready to accept hospice.
- anigbrowl 8y ago
  You can run a company that has to pay $1.7 billion in fines for defrauding medicare and still be governor of Florida and (as of last January) a sitting US Senator: https://www.politifact.com/florida/statements/2014/mar/03/florida-democratic-party/rick-scott-rick-scott-oversaw-largest-medicare-fra/ https://www.politifact.com/florida/statements/2014/mar/03/fl...
  - joe_the_user 8y ago
    Indeed, The phrase "Robber barons" from 19th century was hardly overstated. America is once again reaching a stage where a large enough fraud and criminality offers an exit strategy into the ruling class.
sct202 8y ago
"In the revised indictment of Esformes, prosecutors said he illicitly gave the coach (Penn basketball coach) $74,000 in the form of cash, a recruiting trip to Miami and a ride on a private jet in 2013 and 2014." https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-10-05/celtics-assistant-coach-pleads-guilty-in-money-laundering-case https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-10-05/celtics-a... Seems more affordable than I thought, considering in the other scandals people were dropping $500k+.
shimmrs 8y ago
What I never understood about the college admissions scandal is why those rich parents were SO worried about their kids getting into some good college. They were rich! These kids would be 100% fine (actually more than fine) even if they didn't go to ANY college at all, and just stayed home and played video games all day! The second thing I didn't get is why they would spend so much money on USC, which is not even a top school.
- PhantomGremlin 8y ago
  why they would spend so much money on USC, which is not even a top school It might not be "a top school" by whatever criteria you're using, but it's a very good school. Depending on what major you're interested in, it's very much elite. E.g. here's the title of a recent article it took me 10 seconds of googling to find: USC Film School Turns 90: Famous Alums Gather to Share Memories of a Hollywood Incubator[1] Some other factoids:[2] Admission Standards Elite Acceptance Rate 16% generally admitting students who score in the top 7 percent. [1] https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/features/30-usc-film-school-alums-gather-90th-anniversary-1190638 https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/features/30-usc-film-schoo... [2] https://www.collegesimply.com/colleges/california/university-of-southern-california/admission/ https://www.collegesimply.com/colleges/california/university...
  - JetSpiegel 8y ago
    > Acceptance Rate 16% As the scandal proves, that was way too much. Either that, or they were kicking out deserving poor people to make room for the bribed kids.
cannabis_sam 8y ago
The fundamental problem here is that what we call ”education” is largely a way to place people into a hiearchy of worth, NOT a way of transmiting knowledge or further peoples understanding of the world. Rich people see the reality of this and of course want to help their kids ensure a comfortable place in this hierarchy, while the hoi poloi still think’s about getting an education and working hard lol Maybe we should ask ourselves why/how these people ended up with so much economic power in the first place?

125 points by jonwachob91 8y ago

Me: "Man, the Pharmabro, Martin Shkreli was convicted of fraud in the millions and raised the price on Daraprim 5000%. Is there bigger more entitled asshole who could not be more hated?" Philip Esformes: "Hold my beer..."

toomuchtodo 8y ago
Shkreli made all of his investors whole, and put a program in place that you could get Daraprim at minimal cost if you couldn’t afford it. He raised prices on those who could pay: insurance companies. I love a deserved smear, but Shkreli doesn’t deserve half as much as what he got from the uneducated public, nor his unnecessarily long jail sentence.
- dgzl 8y ago
  His interview with The Breakfast Club was good, better than they give him credit.
- lisper 8y ago
  > He raised prices on those who could pay: insurance companies. I cannot imagine a more tone-deaf defense of this scoundrel. Where exactly do you think insurance companies get their money?
  - toomuchtodo 8y ago
    Are you locking up all of the other pharma CEOs who do it? That’s the difference between justice and outrage porn. I’m not saying he did nothing wrong (some jail time and monetary penalty was in order, but not the severity that was issued). I take issue that he was sacrificed for the public because of his brash showmanship, and the broken system marches on with little complaint. Epi Pen and insulin manufacturer execs still walk free, and they did far worse.
    - lisper 8y ago
      > Are you locking up all of the other pharma CEOs who do it? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_quoque https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_quoque
      - toomuchtodo 8y ago
        Pointing out a lack of proportionality in dealing out punishment through the justice system is not appealing to hypocrisy IMHO. Quite the contrary: to not point it out allows for a "free for all". I challenge the belief that prison time should be issued based on actions that aren't crimes, versus actual crime committed. The sentencing guidelines were clear for the fraud Shkreli committed; they were thrown out the window and the public cheered. That is not justice, and we (the public) are remiss for not critiquing how the system worked as part of the larger issue that is prison and justice reform. We must not be so cavalier with years of someone's life, years they will never get back. Being obnoxious is not a crime.
        lisper 8y ago
        But that's not the part of your argument I was criticizing. It may well be that Shkreli got a disproportionate punishment simply because he's an asshole. I'm not taking a position on that. What I was talking about is this: > He raised prices on those who could pay: insurance companies. With the implication that that makes what he did OK. Well, it doesn't. One way or another, the costs get passed on to consumers and taxpayers, which is to say, everyone. Spreading the pain so that it is not immediately apparent to any one individual doesn't change that. It is simply not the case that insurance companies are independent wealthy entities who "can pay" without any negative consequences to anyone else. It is in no small measure this mistaken assumption that has led to the mess that the U.S. health care system is currently in.
        toomuchtodo 8y ago
        Why is it not okay to raise the price to what the market (insurance companies) will pay? How else would you expect the market clearing price to be determined (Conservatives in Congress implemented legislation prohibiting Medicare from negotiating drug prices with pharma companies)? Every day healthcare providers are finding ways to extract as much as possible from payers (insurance companies, Medicare, Medicaid); this is not illegal. Immoral? Sure, I'll bite and state it's wrong, but entirely economically rational in the current broken system. What makes Shrekli's transgressions particularly bothersome? He put the issue in the spotlight for the American public to see (with much bravado), front and center, and he's the bad guy for showing the system is broken? What he did was entirely legal, and in no way should've impacted his fraud sentencing. But exacting revenge on a single person (through overly punitive prison sentencing) does nothing to fix systemic issues. Someone with talent that could be redirected in a positive way (his financial analysis and engineering acumen is proven) is cooling his heels in a jail cell for years, and the American healthcare system is as broken as it was before. I've seen happen before [1], and was just as dismayed with how the person in question was treated relative to the severity of the crime(s). [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_Mitnick#Computer_hacking https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_Mitnick#Computer_hacking
  - darkpuma 8y ago
    De Niro characer in Heat: > "We want to hurt no one. We're here for the bank's money, not your money. Your money is insured by the federal government, you're not gonna lose a dime. Think of your families, don't risk your life. Don't try and be a hero." Is that tone deaf, or might it work? I bet it would work. When the financial harm is spread out thin, people take it less personally. That's why people regularly fight back against muggers, but we very rarely see anybody take vigilante action against hospitals, the pharma industry or insurance companies when hospitals charge $10+ for a single aspirin pill and insurance companies spread that harm thin.
    - nerdponx 8y ago
      Your money is insured by the federal government And where does the federal government get their money? It's stealing from taxpayers.
      - mikeyouse 8y ago
        Nah, FDIC receives $0 in appropriations from the Federal Government - it's funded by premiums that the banks pay and from earnings on US treasury deposits.
        nerdponx 8y ago
        I did not know that. Thanks.
    - lisper 8y ago
      It's tone deaf. It's based on a false belief about how money works. In fact, it's based on the exact same false belief that /u/toomuchtodo's defense of Shrkeli is based on. Yes, it's true that the federal government insures deposits, and so the loss from the theft from the bank will not be borne by the depositors directly. But the government has to get its money from somewhere too, and there are only two possible places it can get it: through taxation, or by printing it. If it uses tax money to cover the losses then the losses are borne by tax payers, and if it prints the money then the losses are borne by everyone via the resulting inflation. > When the financial harm is spread out thin, people take it less personally. That is certainly true, but that doesn't make it any less harmful. In fact, it is precisely the thin spreading of the harm that causes people to be complacent about the real underlying problems. The result is that by the time people become aware of the problems again, they have become much more serious and concomitantly more difficult to solve (c.f. the 2008 financial crisis).
- adrr 8y ago
  Shkreli is a prime example of our broken criminal justice system. His investors didn't lose money even though he did provide fraudulent information to raise capital. Companies during the home loan crisis provided fake info(eg: fake income) to qualify for the home loans. And they got away with non-prosecution agreements and just fines. People's life savings were wiped out during the crisis.
  - paulgb 8y ago
    > His investors didn't lose money even though he did provide fraudulent information to raise capital. There are things broken with the way the criminal justice system judges the severity of crimes, but the idea that fraud shouldn’t be punished so long as investors get their money back leads to an even worse system.
  - mikeyouse 8y ago
    He stole money from one group of investors, gambled with that money in a new company (while lying about it on all of the relevant financial statements) and eventually made the original investors whole --- if you ignore the profits that he made by using their money illegally. Why on Earth do people defend that scumbag? Because he had some Livestreams? If you rob a bank, spend all that money on lottery tickets, then leave a sack of money for the exact amount you stole in the lobby after getting lucky, do you think everything should be copacetic? 1. You still robbed the bank! 2. Gambling with someone else's money isn't virtuous.
    - darkpuma 8y ago
      Are you really this angry at him over illegal accounting/investing? Or are you using that as an excuse because you're actually angry at him over what he did with daraprim? I think many people defend him because they suspect people claiming to be mad about the former are actually mad about the later. Edit: > "So people are defending him on #1 because they think other people are too mad about #2? " Yes that's my belief. Imagine Mel Gibson was caught bringing weed into an authoritarian SEA country, and was sentenced to caning. Now imagine there were people celebrating that sentencing, because Mel Gibson is a racist. In this hypothetical, is he a drug smuggling racist? Yes. I wager you'd see people defend him though, and accuse people celebrating his caning as being biased by his racism.
- deanalevitt 8y ago
  Shkreli himself played a deliberate role in the public's perception of him. I've always wondered why but I suspect it was pig-headedness.
JCharante 8y ago
Martin Shkreli is not an asshole, he's a role model. You have merely fallen for the propaganda.
- ourmandave 8y ago
  You forgot the /s (I hope).
  - creddit 8y ago
    Unfortunately, many people have been memed into believing Shkreli is a Good Guy™ and that he did nothing wrong.
    - scarejunba 8y ago
      It's a fascinating glimpse into the minds of conspiracy theorists. The "you've been duped" bit. The "actual hero" and the shadowy villains who "do the same". Fascinating. Inconsistent but such an enduring belief.
hervature 8y ago
It is easy to demonize Shkreli when you look at the 5000% number. But what he did was sell 1 pill for half the price of a bottle with 100 pills. This sounds bad until you consider most hospitals were throwing out the bottles completely unused before the expiry date. Most hospitals were happy because now they were only wasting half as much money.
- ourmandave 8y ago
  It is easy to demonize Shkreli when you look at the 5000% number. Yes, it is. Very easy. And why would a hospital buy so many pills if they knew they're eventually going to throw them away by the 100s? And what supplier only sells low demand pills by the 100 count?
  - hervature 8y ago
    Hospitals HAVE to buy the pills because they need to be able to handle rare conditions if they occur. Shkreli FIXED the issue of only supplying 100 counts by offering a 1 count option. But obviously the overhead of manufacturing is the largest component of pill production. So he couldn't reduce the price by dividing by 100.
    - Thorrez 8y ago
      What costs are the overhead of manufacturing? The packaging? The packaging shouldn't cost ($750-$13.50) = $736.50.
      - hervature 8y ago
        Setting up the factory, R&D for the drug itself, etc.
- nerdponx 8y ago
  That's like saying refugees in the US should be grateful they were detained without recourse, rather than detained and beaten.

cs702 8y ago

One of the things that struck me the most as I read about the college bribery scandal is that many if not all the parents involved acted as if bribing people, falsifying records, doctoring photographs, etc. were things that "everyone else was doing to get ahead in the admissions game" and therefore they could justify and rationalize it as necessary. At a minimum, they can at least claim they did it for their children. I don't know how anyone could ever justify and rationalize stealing money from the elderly and taxpayers. It seems so wrong; indefensible, really. Jeez...

mdanger007 8y ago
Projection is something the good and bad do. There really is a battle of dark and light you see in mythology and centers on people's psychological need to project their actions as the norm.
austincheney 8y ago
Fraud is wrong. Rationalizing it away as a fashion isn’t justifiable. Both types of fraud you point to are no different for me.
- x0x0 8y ago
  Why? One of the US attorneys wasting our federal tax dollars prosecuting the parents even pointed it out: they bribed the college the wrong way, by not buying them a building like they were supposed to. "We're not talking about donating a building...we're talking about fraud." So the injured parties here are the universities, and their complaint is they got cut out on the bribe dollars. Which is fine and all, but I don't understand at all why that's our problem. That's the universities' problems, and they should feel free to sue their employees for not sharing bribes appropriately. Health care fraud actually hurts people and steals from the federal government, so there's two good reasons to spend our resources prosecuting it.
  - philips 8y ago
    I believe the problem was the personal donation for the fraud was structured as a tax deductible non-profit donation.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

0815test 8y ago

Alternative title: "Florida Man's $1.3B Health Fraud Was 'The Largest Ever'"

eatbitseveryday 8y ago

> Esformes made off with at least $37 million for himself from 1998 to 2016, according to prosecutors, using the money to finance a lavish lifestyle of fancy cars and a $360,000 watch. 18 years this went on?? This is what surprised me the most.

mikeash 8y ago
There’s little motivation for law enforcement to search for white collar crime, and little support for prosecuting it. Look at the indictments produced by the Mueller investigation. Politics aside, some of those people were doing real shady shit for years, and they would have gotten away with it cleanly had they not gotten entangled with the campaign.
- pm90 8y ago
  Counter-argument: none of the shady shit they'd done had enough of an effect to interest law enforcement, right until they got control of the Presidency. It seems to make sense to me now. All the fear mongering over immigrants and drugs flooding across the border when an American company (Purdue Pharma) engineered the worst actual drug epidemic in generations makes me wonder about the effectiveness of spending literally billions on the "War on Drugs" while not addressing the real issues.
  - mikeash 8y ago
    I don’t think that’s a counter argument, just a specific example of what I said in my first paragraph.
    - pm90 8y ago
      What you say in your first paragraph: > There’s little motivation for law enforcement to search for white collar crime, and little support for prosecuting it. How is what I said a specific example of this?
      - 8y ago

JMTQp8lwXL 8y ago

Why do wealthy people need to even buy admission for their children into elite schools? Don't they have enough independent wealth to support not only themselves, but their children, as well? With that kind of money, their children really don't need to cultivate careers... and even if they wanted to, surely they could do it the old fashioned way? And if they fail, parents can bail them out? Or is it primarily driven by greed, and the parents want the kids to make a lot of money, so the family has even greater wealth?

alexpetralia 8y ago
I think they do it for the prestige/status. This is generally what people want wealth for anyway, above a certain life-sustaining amount.
- JMTQp8lwXL 8y ago
  What is the point of prestige/status if it isn't even real? It's like they're sending their kids to Stanford for the Instagram likes they'll get.
  - musicale 8y ago
    What is surprising about seeking status (or more importantly avoiding status loss) in the eyes of your peers?
    - JMTQp8lwXL 8y ago
      It's funny how the 20-somethings of the well-off seemingly have the skills and experience to take on key leadership roles, that their peers somehow would have to take decades to ascend to. It's "status" but anybody can look at say, Ivanka Trump for example, and see right through it.
      - JetSpiegel 8y ago
        > anybody The people that matter can't, that's their target. By which I mean, other socialites.

musicale 8y ago

It is well known that colleges often give special consideration to children of alumni, largely for the purpose of encouraging and sustaining financial contributions. They usually justify it by noting that it brings money into the school and allows them to offer better financial aid. I think they would do well to simply state some students are admitted based on whether they bring something worthwhile to the college, including but not limited to: academic achievement, artistic accomplishment, athletic prowess, background diversity, gender balance, interest diversity, and financial contribution/desirability, but if students graduate from the school then they have probably proven that they are at least minimally qualified to attend. It has never been a level playing field, and there are always qualified students who are rejected for reasons completely beyond their control. One bit of consolation for those rejected from all of their elite schools is that it may be easier to excel at a non-elite college, improving your chances for admission to an elite graduate program. And seriously, who really wants to pay $50K+ a year to a college/country club only to be saddled with crippling student loan debt after graduation, debt that even bankruptcy cannot expunge?

dr_ 8y ago

This is stunning in its scope and made me wonder in what other developed country is it even possible for a citizen to defraud its government of over 1 billion dollars? The skilled nursing system in this country is broken, with no meaningful oversight other than an annual inspection which everyone knows is coming. Lengths of stay are unnecessarily long and the quality of care is unbelievably sub par. Despite all of this, fraud at this level is pretty astounding, and should serve as a wake up call for the government to more aggressively monitor all facilities, or outsource monitoring from the States to private agencies.

jamra 8y ago
Skilled therapy is changing though. PDPM doesn’t reimburse through the amount of therapy provided. It reimburses by the need of the patient. I believe nursing is included in that budget
- dr_ 8y ago
  that was what the RUGs were supposed to do, but it was easily gamed and I don’t see why this wouldn’t be either. The only advantage it offers, IMO, is that it allows patients with a greater variety of needs (like more nursing skill and less or no therapy) to receive care. For example, the end stage cancer patient who can’t withstand much therapy but isn’t ready to accept hospice.
anigbrowl 8y ago
You can run a company that has to pay $1.7 billion in fines for defrauding medicare and still be governor of Florida and (as of last January) a sitting US Senator: https://www.politifact.com/florida/statements/2014/mar/03/florida-democratic-party/rick-scott-rick-scott-oversaw-largest-medicare-fra/ https://www.politifact.com/florida/statements/2014/mar/03/fl...
- joe_the_user 8y ago
  Indeed, The phrase "Robber barons" from 19th century was hardly overstated. America is once again reaching a stage where a large enough fraud and criminality offers an exit strategy into the ruling class.

sct202 8y ago

"In the revised indictment of Esformes, prosecutors said he illicitly gave the coach (Penn basketball coach) $74,000 in the form of cash, a recruiting trip to Miami and a ride on a private jet in 2013 and 2014." https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-10-05/celtics-assistant-coach-pleads-guilty-in-money-laundering-case https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-10-05/celtics-a... Seems more affordable than I thought, considering in the other scandals people were dropping $500k+.

shimmrs 8y ago

What I never understood about the college admissions scandal is why those rich parents were SO worried about their kids getting into some good college. They were rich! These kids would be 100% fine (actually more than fine) even if they didn't go to ANY college at all, and just stayed home and played video games all day! The second thing I didn't get is why they would spend so much money on USC, which is not even a top school.

PhantomGremlin 8y ago
why they would spend so much money on USC, which is not even a top school It might not be "a top school" by whatever criteria you're using, but it's a very good school. Depending on what major you're interested in, it's very much elite. E.g. here's the title of a recent article it took me 10 seconds of googling to find: USC Film School Turns 90: Famous Alums Gather to Share Memories of a Hollywood Incubator[1] Some other factoids:[2] Admission Standards Elite Acceptance Rate 16% generally admitting students who score in the top 7 percent. [1] https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/features/30-usc-film-school-alums-gather-90th-anniversary-1190638 https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/features/30-usc-film-schoo... [2] https://www.collegesimply.com/colleges/california/university-of-southern-california/admission/ https://www.collegesimply.com/colleges/california/university...
- JetSpiegel 8y ago
  > Acceptance Rate 16% As the scandal proves, that was way too much. Either that, or they were kicking out deserving poor people to make room for the bribed kids.

cannabis_sam 8y ago

The fundamental problem here is that what we call ”education” is largely a way to place people into a hiearchy of worth, NOT a way of transmiting knowledge or further peoples understanding of the world. Rich people see the reality of this and of course want to help their kids ensure a comfortable place in this hierarchy, while the hoi poloi still think’s about getting an education and working hard lol Maybe we should ask ourselves why/how these people ended up with so much economic power in the first place?