The former Theranos CEO is barred from receiving payments from federal health program.
Elizabeth Holmes—the disgraced and incarcerated founder of the infamous blood-testing startup Theranos—is barred from participating in federal health programs for nine decades, according to an announcement from the health department Friday.
The exclusion means that Holmes is barred from receiving payments from federal health programs for services or products, which significantly restricts her ability to work in the health care sector. It also prevents her from participating in Medicare, Medicaid, and other federal health care programs. With a 90-year term, the exclusion is lifelong for Holmes, who is currently 39.
The exclusion was announced by Inspector General Christi Grimm of the Department of Health and Human Services' Office of Inspector General.
Holmes is serving an 11-year, three-month sentence for defrauding investors of her blood-testing startup, Theranos, which she founded in 2003. At the time, Holmes claimed to have developed proprietary technology that could perform hundreds of medical tests using just a small drop of blood from a finger prick. The remarkable claim helped her drive the company's valuation to a stunning $9 billion in 2014, and set up lucrative partnerships. But, in reality, the technology never worked. The company collapsed in 2018, and she was convicted of fraud in 2022.
I grew up in their test market. I watched every friend I had lose their parents to opioid addiction. I watched my dad go from busting his ass caring for us, camping trips, fishing trips, and hunting trips, to hanging out behind a car wash with other unemployed junkies while we cooked on a wood stove and had no electricity.
I grew up in it so it was normal. I ended up on it. You either had a social life or you didn’t. There weren’t very many sober people left by 2005.
I have seen death and chaos all of my life. My brother and I are among about 5 boys from our neighborhood left. We got sober because luckily our mother never touched the stuff and was able to be there for us. The rest in our age group are dead. Overdoses and suicides because of the addiction.
I knew nothing but violence and chaos as a kid because they lied and made junkies of entire communities.
Money is magical. As long as you pay your taxes you’ll be fine. Might have to deal with some embarrassment from time to time, you might get your name taken off of something. Other than that, luxury and protection.
The only reason Holmes is in jail is that she fucked with other people with money. She should have found a way to get rich poisoning the poors.
Too young, white, and female? You mean the least incarcerated demographic in the USA?
It's surely not because she's a fake voiced sociopath who got the hopes up of millions of patients and healthcare workers alike... falsely representing technology to defraud millions of investors...
Nope... Definitely because she's a middle aged woman lol.
It's unclear what they mean by "participate" in this context. The sentence right before that is talking about being barred from receiving payments from federal health programs, so I'm wondering if they mean "participating" on the provider's side, rather than the patient's.
HHS-OIG has authority under 1128(a) of the Social Security Act to exclude from participation in Medicare, Medicaid and other Federal health care programs individuals who have been convicted of certain crimes, including criminal offenses related to health care fraud. An exclusion is an administrative sanction that protects Federal health care programs and the people they serve by prohibiting payment for any health care item or service furnished, ordered, or prescribed by an excluded person.
I could see it argued both ways. It looks like this is meant to prohibit her from working with or receiving payment from any group in this sector.
From the wording it's difficult to tell if this means she also won't be able to be reimbursed for her own personal healthcare costs by any of these programs.
It's not about fair, it's about sending the message that you don't fuck with rich people's money, especially not in a way that publically embarrasses them.
If they don't want her to participate in Medicare and Medicaid then go all the way and not allow her to pay into it with her tax dollars. This seems like cruel and unusual punishment.
EDIT: It also seems arbitrary because I don't think this was part of her sentence.
She will still get benefits, every inmate gets benefits even though the care you receive in prison is low quality it's still cruel and unusual to not give prisoners access to at least minimal health care needs. A case like that wouldn't even make it to the supreme court. She just can't receive payments or work for a company that receives payments from those services.