Ariel Cohen
The Daily Caller
6/10/2013
At least 436 employees of the Department of Health and Human Services received advance word of an upcoming Medicare decision, and now federal investigators are looking into whether they tipped off Wall Street investors.
A review of emails by Republican Sen. Charles E. Grassley of Iowa found that hundreds of HHS employees received advanced word of a billion-dollar Medicare decision weeks before the official announcement, according to the Washington Post. Trading in Humana and other private health insurers’ stock spiked in the period before the announcement.
Insiders at HHS had advance word of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ April 1 decision to spend an additional $8 billion of the taxpayers’ money on the private-sector Medicare Advantage program. HHS officials told the post this was necessary due to the complexity of Medicare policy. Grassley wants to know how Wall Street investors learned of the federal ruling…
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