Bradley Birkenfeld did quite well whistleblowing on UBS [1]. $104m.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bradley_Birkenfeld#Whistleblow...

Considering many of these people end up blacklisted from their industry, we as a society kind of owe it to them.

We owe that guy 104 million?

We definitely owe them enough money that they could comfortably fill the payment gap to their next job (which might be never, meaning enough money to pay for inflation-adjusted lost income during the entire remainder of their career).

But in the name of pragmatism, it is unlikely that whistleblowers would blow the whistle on a purely economical basis if the reward wasn't higher than that.

Then we should also pay whistleblowers who report environmental issues a lot of money. I don't think that's the case.

If someone saves you a billion, what's $100m?

What is society but our debts to eachother

Considering that money came out of the fine that their employer paid, I don't see a problem.

"Doing well by doing good."

you cannot be fired for being a whistleblower, so if you 'all the sudden' had performance problems and got fired shortly after whistleblowing, i imagine courts would side with you.

There are lots of things that you're not supposed to be fired for, that people get fired for. Unfortunately, the onus is on the employee, with almost no resources, to prove that the company was lying.

Sure, you can't be fired easily. But what about when it comes time for a raise or promotion? What about when you are interviewing for your next role? It's hard to imagine anyone getting punished for discriminating in these cases, since it's always easy to pin it on other things.

This is not how reality works at all. You're fantasizing.

They fire or sideline you for something else and you never get a job in that industry again.

And if you want to fight it, it's you vs. an army of corporation backed lawyers.

if you really can't be fired, you surely won't be doing any actual work ever, even if you still get paid.

What a strange story. He spent 40 months in prison for the things he blew the whistle on, and was the only person jailed for it.

Then he later received $104m, and yet still no one else went to prison.

It's great that Markopolos has found a way to make his forensic skills pay.

And in pharma it will continue to keep paying and paying as the fundamental problems creating 500% markups on drugs is never being solved [1]:

> "What they discovered was that they were buying drugs for a buck and Uncle Sam was paying $5 for 'em,” Burns says. “Five-hundred percent markups, 1,000 percent markups, 2,000 percent markups that Uncle Sam was paying.”

[1] http://slatestarcodex.com/2016/08/29/reverse-voxsplaining-dr...

> the price it was paying for certain drug was very different from what the gov't thought they cost

Is this a sign of wrongdoing? I don't know how things are supposed to work.

Drug pricing isn't transparent. The list price is publically available, but many manufacturers offer point of sales discounts or rebates. For some drugs the actual price might only be 10% of the list price.

This makes it hard for Medicare and Medicaid to know how much to reimburse. It's in the drug company's and the pharmacy's best interest that what Medicare pays is as high as possible, since the difference between acquisition cost and reimbursement is profit in the pocket of the pharmacy. It also benefits drug companies since that profit incentivized use and what do they care? It's not their money.

What the gov't does is require every drug company to report various prices. What is the average price the drug is sold at (inclusive of all discount/rebates)? What's the lowest price the drug is sold at? The gov't then uses this information to determine how much to reimburse.

Some of these companies simply reported the wrong prices to the gov't that resulted in inflated reimbursement. That violation falls under the False Claim Act (from the US Civil War) and the companies get sued for every pill they sold at that wrong price. So it adds up.

>and the companies get sued for every pill they sold at that wrong price. //

They should instead lose all profits, and the C-grades lose all that years compensation and be barred temporarily from starting any new companies.

Only if misdeeds jeopardise their other profits will they take notice, otherwise it's always worth trying the fraud because they can do some business without fraudulently presenting prices and so maintain the business.

These sorts of deleterious actions should lead to punishment that risks putting the company in to receivership.

One particular penalty that is an option is being disbarred from participating in Medicare/Medicaid. Depending on the disease the drug treats, that can be 50% of your market. And you're disbarred as an entity, not just the individual drug.

Interesting, when Pfizer was found to be promoting off-label use of their drug (another no-no), they were disbarred. Well... their Pharmacia-Upjohn subsidiary was disbarred. Luckily that entity doesn't actually have any sales.

>is being disbarred from participating in Medicare/Medicaid. Depending on the disease the drug treats, that can be 50% of your market. And you're disbarred as an entity, not just the individual drug.

So the people on Medicare/Medicaid who may benefit from the drug are punished?

You perfectly highlighted the problem of using this to penalize a company!

How do you punish a misbehaving company without hurting the people using their products?

Nationalize it.

I don't have a lot of faith the gov't can run a pharma company. Plus, confiscating a company is going to chase away any future investment.

If prices aren't agreed upon beforehand, what prevents drugs for being sold at high prices (and truthfully reported)?