ROBBING TAXPAYERS, EXPLOITING THE POOR

Three cheers for the Columbus County pharmacists who smelled the rats and
for the Columbus County social workers who called in the exterminators.
Thanks to them, a well-organized scheme to rob the taxpayers has been stopped.

According to local, state and federal law enforcement authorities, peddlers
of a prescription pain killer called OxyContin bought Medicaid insurance
cards from people poor enough to qualify for them. The criminals used the
cards and forged prescriptions to buy pills for $3 and sell them for up to
$7200.

Federal, state and local taxpayers got the bill for the difference between
that $3 co-payment and what the pills cost. Officials say that in the past
year, Columbus County taxpayers, who are among the state's least well-off,
lost more than $1 million.

Robbery of a tax-funded program to help the poor would be unconscionable at
any time. At a time when the state and its local governments are facing
huge shortfalls - created in large part by Medicaid bills - it is intolerable.

Having rounded up the small fry, investigators hope to hook the big fish.
Wish them luck

The people involved in this scheme bear varying degrees of responsibility
and should be treated accordingly. But those who organized it and profited
most from it should be given the stiffest sentences the law allows.

They corrupted the weak, undermined the medical care of the poor and stole
from the taxpayers. Make them sorry. And make would-be copycats think more
than twice.