Jean Jethro Alexandre may have done a tremendous service for taxpayers and low-income Americans without health insurance.

Alexandre defrauded Medicare, Medicaid, and private health insurance companies for at least $58 million. He worked with nurse practitioners to write phony prescriptions and then claimed they were eligible for a rebate under Section 340B of the Public Health Service Act.

Created in 1992, it allows qualified entries – such as Disproportionate Share Hospitals (DSH) that provide a disproportionate amount of care to low-income and uninsured patients – to purchase pharmaceuticals at a discount while still being reimbursed by government programs and private insurances as if they had paid the full rate. Congress created the program soqualified entities could use the savings to provide more help to low-income and uninsured Americans who do not qualify for Medicare or Medicaid.

Alexandre’s mistake was using fake prescriptions to profit. If he had gotten a job as a hospital administrator, he could have legally profited from legitimate prescriptions that qualified for the government’s discounts. This is because the law does not........

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