WASHINGTON – Sen. Chuck Grassley, Chairman of the Judiciary Committee, today said the Department of Justice should reconsider its decision to refuse to appear voluntarily at a Judiciary Committee hearing on issues related to the EpiPen’s reported misclassification under Medicaid and resulting overcharges to the taxpayers.
“This is a problem that apparently went on the entire Obama administration,” Grassley said. “It’s hard to understand why the Justice Department won’t testify about allegedly hundreds of millions of dollars in overcharges to the taxpayers. Accountability requires getting answers about why the overcharges happened and what, if anything, is being done to make sure the taxpayers are repaid for their losses and to keep this from happening again.”
Grassley has scheduled a Judiciary Committee hearing for Nov. 30 to examine a potential settlement over hundreds of millions of dollars in reported overcharges to the taxpayers under the Medicaid Drug Rebate Program and the role government agencies had in the misclassification. So far, the Justice Department and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services are declining to testify voluntarily. CMS officials were told in March 2009 that Mylan misclassified the EpiPen and was overcharging the taxpayers, yet the misclassification persisted.
The Justice Department told Grassley that “per longstanding practice,” it “declines requests for non-public information about pending matters and investigations.” However, Mylan announced a settlement with the Justice Department on Oct. 7, mentioning specific terms in the alleged settlement and drawing the issue into the public eye. The Justice Department has said there is no “executed settlement.”
“The Justice Department ought to be able to send a witness who could distinguish between what shouldn’t be public and what should be a matter of public discussion,” Grassley said. “In general, the public’s business ought to be public, and the Justice Department works for the public.”
The Justice Department’s letter declining to testify is available here.
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