Blue Cross/Blue Criminal

Beginning of article

Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Illinois, also known as Health Care Service Corporation (HCSC), pled guilty to eight felony counts and agreed to pay $144 million after admitting it concealed evidence of poor performance in processing Medicare claims for the federal government.

The company, the Medicare contractor for Illinois and Michigan, also admitted obstructing justice and conspiring to obstruct federal auditors.

The company will pay $4 million in criminal fines and $140 million in a civil settlement to resolve its liability under the False Claims Act.

At a news conference at the Justice Department to announce the guilty pleas, June Gibbs Brown, the inspector general of the Department of Health and Human Services, made it clear that the crimes of Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Illinois were in no way unprecedented.

"I would like to …