CHARLESTON — West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey has joined a coalition of 51 attorneys general urging the federal government to address state based recoveries involving the Medicare Part D prescription drug benefit program.
In the coalition's letter to U.S. Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch and Ranking Member Ron Wyden, the group outlines the current program that requires monthly payments by the states with absolutely no return of settlement funds recovered by the federal government.
“Over the past decade the states have contributed approximately $80 billion dollars in monthly ‘clawback’ payments to the Medicare Part D prescription drug benefit program,” Morrisey wrote. “Despite the states’ considerable — and growing — financial contributions to the Part D program, the states have not received a single dollar of those recoveries.”
The AGs argue that the federal government should share any Medicaid fraud recovery from these jointly-funded programs with the states. The federal government claims that federal statutes block it from distributing settlement money to the states.
The AGs urge Congress to adopt a specific statute authorizing the federal government to share recoveries with the states.
West Virginia signed onto the Ohio- and North Carolina-led letter along with Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Puerto Rico, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, and Wisconsin.