The closest that we have in the US is the attorney general in your state. Don't expect a quick action from them.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qui_tam

Here's a list of some of the largest, $16.5B by Bank of America; $3B GlaxoSmithKline (illegal kickback); $2.2B Johnson&johnson (illegal kickback); pfizer $2.3B (illegal claims); Merck (illegal kickbacks); HCA has 2 of the top 10 totaling near $1.5B (illegal billing, up coding; illegal kickbacks); and on and on it goes

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.qui-tam-attorney.com/amp/10...

The claim however does not seem to be true, even in 2010 before Florida took a variety of opioid-related actions. For example, California has approximately twice the population of Florida, but probably no(t much) less than half the oxycodone prescription rate. It was hard to find specific numbers, but for example it appears that at its worst (in 2010) some people claim Florida prescribed 650 million pills per year; at the same time, Pennsylvania definitely prescribed over 200 million pills per year. (Pennsylvania has approximately half the population of Florida.)

The closest approximation to the claim that I can find that might have been true is "in 2010, Florida prescribed ten times fewer oxycodone pills than all other states combined". If the factor of ten is exact, then this would still imply that Florida's prescription rate is higher than the other states, as Florida has less than one-tenth of the population of the other states. In any case, it appears that Florida's prescription rate is now around or below the national average.

1. Russians began opening pharmacies in Russian neighborhoods throughout the UD (yes, Russian neighborhoods are a thing);

2. The pharmacies would deliver drugs to the medicare patients and in those deliveries included certain gifts anything from Russian newspapers, magazines, to sometimes Russian caviar;

3. As they do CVS identified the success and bought the network of pharmacies;

4. After the sale a lawsuit was brought, because a pharmacist at just one of these pharmacies mentioned that these additions to the drug deliveries violated anti-kickback laws and as a result the pharmacy took retaliatory action (I believe day shift to night shift and reduced hours)

The US government would never have known if it weren't for the pharmacist, and it's the exact behavior prohibited by the Anti-kickback Statute, but I'd challenge you to articulate the injury to the government (in fairness I know you could, but I think you see the strong counter arguments).

Whether or not the Pharmacy put extra gifts in with the Rx delivery Medicare was not effected. Moreover, the gift has no bearing on Medicare, patients, physicians or reimbursements.

To highlight the distinction, say a Dr. prescribed a drug to be filled at the pharmacy, and the patient never actually got it filled, but the pharmacy filed the claim for the Rx with Medicare anyway to get paid for the drug as if the patient had gotten it filled, the harm to the Government is obvious, they just paid a claim for a drug that was never actually dispensed. In fact, when that actually happens, the pharmacy usually double dips, and rips the label off the unfilled drug, sells it to another patient and still gets paid on the claim as if the original Medicare patient picked it up. Anyway sometimes the harm is obvious and sometimes its invisible, but it all illegal.

When the profits are in the billions, even a fine of 600 million is a paltry line item. You either should fine in an amount relative to the amount made by the illicit activity, or even better, go after the executives behind it directly with said fines or prison. As long as these slimeballs can conduct illegal activity and sail away after "resigning in disgrace" with an 80 million golden parachute, while the company pockets several hundred million, they will continue to do so as has been evident so far for anyone paying attention.

The difference is that consumers don't usually get rich from suing companies, we don't have a 'legal lottery' for every little thing that spoils your day and that you feel grieved about. That higher barrier keeps the courts free for stuff that is important and at the same time makes sure that we don't end up with a climate where everybody is suing everybody else all the time.

By what measure?

Now obviously the United States is huge and there is huge diversity between the various demographics and localities but it is beyond dispute that consumers in Europe are doing fine (and that consumers in the United States are not doing much worse on average).

It would be strange to find anything different, taking into account that we're talking about the wealthiest segment of the world.

Thanks for the data point. I'll point out that consumer satisfaction depends on many things in addition to what we are talking about in this thread.

They have stats for anything and everything, most renewed annually, in all 3 working language, in complete free access, and provide aggregate for EU17 and EU28.

Here is a link to their "browse stats by theme" page: http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/data/browse-statistics-by-theme

The EU system is very pro-consumer and is doing a lot of things to make life easier for consumers ditching roaming is just one of them. With regards to lawsuits the EU system takes the need out of much of that by having fairly strict rules for corporations and giving consumers much more legal backing when it comes to the return of goods, protection from harmful chemicals in food etc.

It's just a different way to look at it than the US.

It's hard to imagine any legal system where a claim to recover a $10 or $20 injury in an individual lawsuit (or arbitration) could be efficient. Such claims could be aggregated in class actions, if consumer contract terms didn't prohibit it. Class action lawyers often think of themselves as doing "social engineering"; forcing companies to pay for injuries they cause in situations where nobody is likely to bring an individual suit at all (e.g., small harms).

Class actions don't normally result in much of a recovery at all for individual consumers, both because amounts for each individual are typically quite small, and because costs of litigation and attorney fees eat up huge percentage of claims defendant corporations are forced to pay. But at least if there were threat of class actions it could scare corporations into not violating terms of consumer agreements. So even if class action suits do end up mostly enriching lawyers, they still help consumers by giving corporations a strong incentive to honor consumer agreements. Class action lawyers as "social engineers".

Fairly incredible actually if you think about it for a while.

What or whom is causing society to go out of its way...? Litigation?

I don't think anyone who has been involved in litigation would use these words in the same sentence, or paragraph. Whose theory says it's efficient?

I suspect that the thinking is that it's efficient in the sense that you don't have the wrong regulation. ie. in the sense that wrong regulation is extremely expensive.

And if people was always employing an optimal strategy, then litigation would rarely be needed as the outcome would be predictable. But I guess people aren't optimal :)

How efficient is it to regulate the behavior on a case-by-case basis, taking years and often millions of dollars for each case, and with all the unpredictable outcomes of a lawsuit? Maybe one ruling by an expert regulator rather than many by inexpert judges and juries isn't such a bad idea after all.

It sounds like a rationalization for deregulation.

> if people was always employing an optimal strategy, then litigation would rarely be needed

If people did that, we wouldn't need government at all. We could live in happy anarchy with all our well-meaning, honest, optimizing neighbors!

Just saying, that's how it's rationalized...

No, they simply pass those costs on to the consumers.

I believe this is a false narrative spread by those who want to reduce consumer access to courts.

Businesses don't price their goods at (cost + profit). They price them at the level that will maximize profit. Sometimes that's at a loss, sometimes that's around break even, sometimes it provides a healthy profit, and sometimes they make extraordinary profits (what do you think the cost is for that $4 soda at the movie theater?).

But the price is already set to maximize profits. If the seller's costs increase, raising the price won't increase profit or help them at all - it would merely reduce revenue due to the negative impact on sales volume. And if their costs go down, they of course don't lower the price, they take more profit.

The ways discussed in the article and in this thread, as examples.

You are free to believe whatever you want but that's a quote straight from a conversation with the CEO of a very large manufacturer of consumer goods, who - in my experience - tended not to speak stuff that wasn't true.

There are exceptions and complexity, of course. In health care, raising the price of a good with inelastic demand such as, say, Epipens, might attract social and political penalties. On the other hand, pricing such goods (e.g., pills that cure terminal diseases) at very high levels to begin with is an accepted practice.

Law should be as efficient and precise and cheap and scalable as code. Hell, that's why they use the term "codified" when they talk about laws on the books.

I, and the circles I've been in, would not necessarily do that. We would reject regulations that are too strict (which, lately, most environmental regulations have been). We would also reject the Federal Government being involved, since it would be a violation of the 10th Amendment in cases that don't cross the state lines. When they do cross the state lines, we'd still prefer it be left to the states, and the Federal government should keep their nose out of it unless the states just can't deal with it. As for State and Local governments, we would accept them implementing regulations when the factory and local residents are unable to come to an agreement on their own.

Note, I'm a US citizen, so I'm referring to that Government. :)

Failing direct negotiation you say states and localities should enact regulations where state boundaries aren't crossed. Essentially no environmental regulations deal with things that do not cross state boundaries. Water and air don't respect lines on a map. Nor do ecosystems.

Worse yet, that isn't even really your position. You say "most" environmental regulations are too strict. So you actually don't think states and localities should regulate the environment. You think we should remove federal regulations and states should not replace them. So really you are parroting the exact positions we have described above without recognizing their true import.

First off, the conservative/libertarian discourse is not "childish" or "uninformed." Libertarian thought has been in development for centuries beginning with classical liberalism. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarianism#History]

Second, the commentor clearly indicated that states and localities can be involved in regulation but only when local discourse fails. The commentor only stated that "most" environmental regulations are too strict, but that doesn't mean we should not have sane ones driven by local (not nationwide cultural ebb and flow demands of the day)!

Third, apparently you are not very familiar with environmental regulation. Environmental regulations need not cross state boundaries (we can regulate water and air from entities in in our own states). Unfortunately, we do not have that capability to balance the locality's needs and the environment's. The current system leaves little if any recourse for citizens or small businesses against government. Who do we go against? Oh yes, the EPA which is nearly or more difficult to reason with than a court system.

The length of time that a school of philosophy has been around does not relate whatsoever to how people talk about it today. See, e.g., flat earthers.

>Third, apparently you are not very familiar with environmental regulation.

I used to practice environmental law.

> Environmental regulations need not cross state boundaries (we can regulate water and air from entities in in our own states).

That would make sense if the air and the water themselves did not cross state boundaries. Turns out they do. Speaking of the classical liberalism you are so fond of, you should really check out this crazy new theory called "the tragedy of the commons."

This is a childishly uninformed discussion because you do not (and I am sure cannot without googling) refer to any specific regulations. Would you care to discuss the Clean Water Act and how you think it is too strict? Do you take issue with the "surface water connection" jurisdictional test for defining the navigable waters of the United States and thus the geographic limits of the CWA? Do you think the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System defines "impaired waters" too broadly? Are NPDES Total Daily Maximum Loads set unreasonably low? Do you think joint Army Corps of Engineers and EPA jurisdiction over impaired waters leads to excessive enforcement bureaucracy? These are not things I just googled but rather regulations I have helped draft, administer, enforce, and even challenge. I am happy to debate the finer points and would be thrilled to see that debate on a national level.

But the debate on the national level is instead childishly uninformed because conservatives argue in nebulous generalities, using catch phrases and talking points, but do not engage with the specifics of the policies in question. The vagueness of their claims allows them to avoid rigorous standards of proof or argumentation.

Statements like "Unfortunately, we do not have that capability to balance the locality's needs and the environment's." This is simply a nonsense talking point, which wholly disregards the non-local nature of the environment. Localities don't get to choose to prioritize their needs over the environment's because they share their environment with other localities. So those localities get together and decide as a group how to regulate the environment via this fancy new invention called the federal government.

What precisely do you even mean? The ability for localities to decide they want more pollutants discharged into the environment? What needs are not being respected? Their need to have lower costs for businesses in order to keep jobs? Which they can only have at the expense of their neighbors, by emitting pollutants into the environment which then flow into their neighbors' jurisdictions and by taking jobs from neighbors who choose not to poison their own and others' land, water, and air?

It's also nonsense because it's factually untrue in many cases. Take NPDES. States enforce it, with the exception of four direct implementation states that have elected to allow the federal EPA to enforce it. The federal EPA simply sets standards and partially funds enforcement via block grants.

Worst of all, your argument does not contribute anything useful to the discussion. "There's too much federal regulation of the environment and more needs to be done at the local level." Ok, fine, let's unpack that statement and see where the argument takes us and why it is so damaging to our national discourse. What federal regulations are excessive and need to be moved to the local level? Your answer will likely be the result of something you recently googled, but let's assume you make a legitimate, well-informed point and identify one federal regulation that should be moved to the local level. I will then point out another ten regulations that clearly need to remain at the federal level. Assuming we then go through every federal regulation on the environment and make this assessment, we are left with a list of some regulations that need to be changed and some that don't. Great. So we then reform the EPA and localities start regulating more efficiently etc. etc. That would be a really awesome result of a national political debate.

This has not happened nationally because we are not having a discussion with that specificity. Conservatives simply argue that the EPA is bad and has to go. Even if they admit in argument that theoretically some regulations should be federal, the practical manifestation of their ideology is a concerted effort to abolish the EPA. See, e.g., Scott Pruitt's current activities.

And that's the real problem with your vague talking points. They drive poisonous, poorly thought out policy-making which does not even reflect your own stated positions. This is why we have Trump, the master of spewing vague generalities. A man wholly unprepared to be president, who is incapable of engaging with policy details on even the most superficial levels, resulting in absurdly awful legislative proposals and a complete absence of legislative progress.

Please, point to specific regulations or policies that you think unreasonably burden localities. That would be a productive contribution to the national debate about environmental regulation. Perhaps the regulation needs to be revised, or perhaps there is a justification you are not considering. Either way, the conversation is worth having. Regurgitating talking points doesn't.

Nor is it an issue that can be addressed at a state level. The Chesapeake Bay watershed encompasses New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware, Virginia, and West Virginia. Water flows to the ocean. The mining industry in West Virginia and the farming industry in Pennsylvania dump pollutants into waterways that affect the tourism industry on the Eastern Shore. The former have every incentive to maximize the externalities they can dump on the latter; the latter has no ability to control how much pollutants are dumped into waterways by the former.

Litigation is not the only option. A group of people can get together and go talk to the owners of the factory directly. No need for lawyers at all. Just individuals working together to come to an agreement.

It's only when that fails that Government should get involved. Either by passing a local law that enacts proper regulation, or via litigation if that's the best option. I seriously doubt there's a one size fits all solution...

I did address issues that cross state borders. Again, I only used the environment related example because you did so first.

What?!

There are no rules against dumping limitless amounts of CO2 into the air, how is none too much?

Or do you reject the scientific premises of climate change?

I disagree. It is true that it is harder for EU consumers to sue a corporation, but in general I feel that consumer rights are generally stronger in the EU than in North America (OP's point about consumer watchdogs), so there is less reason for an EU consumer to sue a corporation.

IANAL, but I'd say the EU system is anti-litigious, not anti-consumer.

I agree with this, I feel the same. However, it seems to me, that if there is a customer related problem already in place, US will find it and react to it faster. To put an example here, all of the major automotive recalls of the last few years were exposed in the US, while Europe reacted to them with a delay (Volkswagen diesels, Takata airbag, Toyota accelerator pedal).

Given how extreme the American reaction to the VW scandal was I do wonder what the response would have been if that company had been GM, Ford or Chrysler. A part of me is really happy that the US brought this to light and made VW pay for their transgression, a part of me feels that the asymmetry between the damage VW has done to Americans and the damage that America has done to other countries is so extreme that it feels as though this is simply a cheap trick to extract some $ from VW and to harm their brand relative to US brands.

Even so, stupid on the part of VW and it should have never happened.

> Given how extreme the American reaction to the VW scandal was I do wonder what the response would have been if that company had been GM, Ford or Chrysler

There were recalls related to GM (GM ignition switch recall - 30M cars worldwide) or Chrysler (just recently [1]) too. ..you are right, these are more dangerous things like cheating the emissions. However, I believe they are not showing favor toward US companies. There are recalls of Fiat-Chrysler cars too because of cheating on emissions [2]. However, they are not affecting millions of cars as in VW case.

[1] https://www.cnbc.com/2017/07/14/fiat-chrysler-recalls-1-poin... [2] https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/19/business/energy-environme...

People know VW was promsing something they couldn't hold.

That certainly doesn't make it right. But it is a mitigating factor. That said, I'm super happy it got exposed so that mileage numbers might actually have meaning in the future.

European consumer law is full of mandatory rules (rules that you cannot derogate from in contracts or in your terms of service). Half of the clauses in your standard American terms would be tossed out by a European court.

European consumer law is far from perfect but I wouldn't trade it for the US system (and I represent corporations).

The article doesn't discuss the American problem of frivolous lawsuits.

Consumers should be able to sue corporations if they really need to, which is what the article is about. But it's even better if they don't need to sue in the first place.