Lets Treat Pfizer Like ACORN
In the wake of the Congressional witch hunt against the community organization ACORN, initiated by Republican minority leader John Boehner and supported by all but seventy-five Democrats in the House and ten in the Senate (Independent Bernie Sanders also voted no), a small number of Democratic lawmakers are pushing back. Last week, in response to the Defund ACORN Act, which seeks to prohibit federal funds to the community group, Minnesota Democrat Betty McCollum, a member of the House Appropriations Committee, introduced an ACORN act of her own. It is titled the "Against Corporations Organizing to Rip-off the Nation Act of 2009," also referred to simply as the ACORN Act. HR 3679 seeks to "prohibit the Federal Government from awarding contracts, grants, or other agreements to, providing any other Federal funds to, or engaging in activities that promote certain corporations or companies guilty of certain felony convictions."
While some lawmakers are focused on exposing the hypocrisy of targeting ACORN and allowing the fraud- and abuse-plagued war industry to go untouched, McCollum's legislation takes aim at massive healthcare corporations. "It's time Congress get serious about taxpayer funding of corporate cheats, crooks and criminals," says McCollum. "Last month Congress took action to defund a nonprofit serving poor Americans but failed to act against the corporate crooks that are actually guilty of felonies--including defrauding taxpayers. Why are companies that break the law as a business strategy allowed to receive taxpayer funds? A government contract is a privilege, not a right. If a company commits a felony against the people of the United States, then that privilege must end." Significantly, McCollum's co-sponsors on the legislation include Wisconsin Democrat David Obey, chair of the House Appropriations Committee. Obey was one of those 172 House Democrats who joined Republicans in voting to defund ACORN on September 17. McCollum, who voted against the Defund ACORN legislation, says that her own legislation is "modeled after" that one but "respects the Constitution by requiring a corporation to be guilty of a felony before federal funds are cut off."
McCollum's bill cites the 2008 Corporate Fraud Task Force Report to the President, which found that in fiscal year 2007, "United States Attorneys' offices opened 878 new criminal health care fraud investigations involving 1,548 potential defendants. Federal prosecutors had 1,612 health care fraud criminal investigations pending, involving 2,603 potential defendants, and filed criminal charges in 434 cases involving 786 defendants. A total of 560 defendants were convicted for health care fraud-related crimes during the year."
McCollum's bill singles out Pharmacia & Upjohn Company Inc., a subsidiary of Pfizer. Last month Pfizer agreed to pay a $2.3 billion settlement, which the Justice Department calls "the largest healthcare fraud settlement in the history of the Department of Justice." The settlement stemmed from Pfizer's "illegal promotion of certain pharmaceutical products," where the company marketed dosages that had not been approved by the FDA.
