The larger portion of the value of criminal determent is the crimes it actually deters. We would have to calculate the cost of those crimes (tough to do-- the cost to society is not the same as the amount stolen, after all, since the money goes in the pockets of the criminals) that would have been committed if it was well known there was no enforcement.

If it cost less than than $712 million to recover this $712 million, it was more than justified. Most law enforcement doesnt have nearly that ROI.

These were major frauds -- $712MM in fraud by 243 people.

I never understand arguments like this.

You do realise that companies/organisations are capable of doing more than one thing at a time.

Yes: it was 700 million dollars. And are you suggesting that law enforcement's time would be better spent investigating legal activities?

712M is 0.15% of the entire yearly Medicare budget. Maybe there's bigger waste that we are still fighting, but that's a hell of a lot to be losing to fraud, and they doubtless haven't caught all the fraudsters yet.

I think they're effective insofar as proposals for reform are often deflected by allegations of fraud and deliberate waste - 'if you can't root out the rampant fraud why should we trust you to reform a broken system?!'

You see this argument in immigration politics a lot too - 'we can't discuss reform until the border is secured.' I agree that meaningful reform would probably substantially reduce the profitability of fraud and make it easier to detect as well, but that's political reality for you.