TRENTON, N.J. — In one of the biggest U.S. health-care-fraud settlements ever, Merck & Co. will pay $671 million to settle claims it overcharged the government for four popular drugs and bribed doctors to prescribe its drugs, federal prosecutors said Thursday.
The alleged overcharges, dating to the mid-1990s, involved Medicaid programs in the District of Columbia and every state but Arizona, as well as federal health-insurance programs at agencies including the Defense and Veterans Affairs departments.
Colorado Attorney General John Suthers said Thursday that the state will receive more than $1.7 million as part of the settlements.
A nationwide investigation by federal prosecutors, triggered in 2000 by a former Merck salesman-turned- whistle-blower and broadened by a Louisiana doctor who also exposed overcharging, resulted in two settlements announced Thursday.
“(The probe) reflects our continuing efforts to hold drug companies accountable for devising pricing schemes” that overcharge the government, said U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey.
