Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost on Thursday announced that Dollar General would pay $750,000 to Ohio’s food banks.
It was part of $1 million the chain — which typically locates itself in underserved neighborhoods — is paying to settle allegations that it ripped off customers by posting one price on store shelves and then charging more at the cash register.
Auditors in Butler County found that one store there was engaged in the practice 88% of the time, and county auditors elsewhere in Ohio also found such activity, but less frequently.
“Most people don’t shop at Dollar General because they have a lot of extra money to spend,” a statement from Yost’s office quoted him as telling a gathering of county auditors in Westerville Thursday. “So when a bottle of shampoo that should cost $1 costs $2 at the checkout, that’s a real thing. And you all brought it to light.”
In signing the settlement, Goodlettsville, Tennessee-based Dollar General stipulated that it wasn’t admitting wrongdoing. But critics of the company, which has 980 stores in Ohio, say it does plenty of harm to poor communities — both out in the country and in big cities.
In a June event hosted by the Institute for Self Reliance, panelists said that consolidation in the grocery sector — including by Dollar General — is driving independent stores out of poor neighborhoods and they’re taking healthy foods like fresh produce with them.
One member of the panel, Rev. Dr. Donald Perryman of the Center of Hope Community Baptist Church in Toledo, said that police there compiled statistics indicating that the presence of such dollar stores increased crime. A September report by CBS News found similar problems nationwide.
Workers at the stores aren’t just vulnerable to crime. Retail Dive this summer reported that Dollar General had racked up $21 million in fines from the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration since 2017 and had paid just $4 million so far.
A February report by The Institute for Self Reliance also told of what it called predatory, anticompetitive practices dollar stores use to drive traditional grocers away. It described how a small grocer called Dave’s Market was left struggling to survive in the Collinwood neighborhood of Cleveland.
Seven Dollar General and Family Dollar stores popped up within a two-mile radius selling the packaged, processed foods that Dave’s also depended on for much of its profit. But the dollar stores didn’t sell the fresh produce and meat that Dave’s offered. The store closed and took those offerings with it last year.
Then there’s the attorney general’s lawsuit, filed last November, claiming that some Dollar General stores were ripping off customers by pricing items one way on the shelves and then charging more when it came time to pay. Yost on Thursday told the county auditors that each of Ohio’s 88 counties has a Dollar General and food banks in each would get $1,000 for that first store. The remainder of the $750,000 would be divided up based on the number of stores a county has, he said.
MARTY SCHLADEN
Marty Schladen has been a reporter for decades, working in Indiana, Texas and other places before returning to his native Ohio to work at The Columbus Dispatch in 2017. He’s won state and national journalism awards for investigations into utility regulation, public corruption, the environment, prescription drug spending and other matters.
One might think that a movement associated with a former state Supreme Court chief justice could draft a petition summary that passes legal muster. But twice already, Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost has rejected summaries of a petition to put an anti-gerrymandering amendment on Ohio’s November 2024 ballot.
So far, nobody’s explicitly accusing Yost of deliberately slow-walking approval of the anti-gerrymandering amendment, but frustration is growing — and one advocate of redistricting reform pointed out that further delays can become critical quickly.
“The slower this goes, there are increasingly serious consequences,” said Catherine Turcer, executive director of Common Cause Ohio, which supports the amendment.
Ohio’s legislative and congressional districts are highly gerrymandered. While Donald Trump carried the state by less than eight percentage points in 2020, Republicans control 68% of seats in the state House, 78% in the state Senate and 66% of the state’s seats in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Ohio voters apparently didn’t want things to be this way. In 2015 and 2018, redistricting amendments to curb extreme partisan gerrymandering in the legislature and Congress both passed with more than 70% of the vote.
But since the 2020 Census, seven sets of maps passed by the Republican-dominated Redistricting Commission have been rejected by the Ohio Supreme Court. By effectively running out the clock, the districts rejected by the court are still in effect.
Former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Ohio Maureen O’Connor. (Photo by Graham Stokes for Ohio Capital Journal. Republish photo only with original story.)
Former Chief Justice Maureen O’Connor, a Republican, voted with the court’s three Democrats to reject the GOP-drawn maps, until she was forced to retire because of her age in 2022. Now she’s working with the group Citizens Not Politicians to put another constitutional amendment on the ballot.
She says this one will close loopholes by creating a truly independent redistricting commission made of up of citizens that won’t place a partisan thumb on the scales.
It would ban partisan gerrymanders and create a 15-member commission of Republicans, Democrats and independents to draw the lines. Current and former officeholders, lobbyists and large donors would be banned from sitting on it.
Despite the claims made by GOP leaders during their August attempt to restrict citizen access to the process, voter-initiated amendments to the Ohio Constitution are anything but easy.
First activists have to draft a proposed amendment and a summary of it, gather 1,000 signatures from registered voters and submit them to the attorney general. If the Ohio Attorney General approves the petition summary as accurate, then they have to gather more than 400,000 signatures from registered voters — with a percentage coming from each of 44 of the state’s 88 counties.
And, because many signatures are typically disqualified, proponents try to gather hundreds of thousands more than the minimum. It’s an intensive, costly, time-sensitive process.
Two petition summary rejections and a third submission in waiting
So far, Citizens Not Politicians has twice had its petition summaries rejected.
On Aug. 23, Attorney General Yost rejected the first summary, citing nine instances of “omissions and misstatements.”
For example, the summary said that a bipartisan panel appointing commissioners would hire a professional search firm to “assist” it. But the proposed amendment says that the consulting firm would “solicit applications for commissioner, screen and provide information about applicants, check references, and otherwise facilitate the application review and applicant interview process.”
The summary was, well, too summary, Yost ruled.
“The summary thus diminishes the actual role of the search firm in the application process, by merely stating the search firm would ‘assist’ the panel,” the ruling said.
Then after listing specific shortcomings the attorney general found in the first summary, the letter made a statement that made it seem all but certain that a second attempt would fail as well.
“The above instances are just a few examples of the summary’s omissions and misstatements,” it said.
A spokeswoman for Yost didn’t respond when asked why the attorney general didn’t specify the other problems he found with the petition summary. She also didn’t respond to a question asking whether Yost, who is eyeing a run for governor, believes extreme partisan gerrymandering is a problem in the United States.
Citizens Not Politicians quickly gathered another 1,000 signatures and submitted a new summary. On Sept. 14, Yost rejected that as well, but this time he cited only one deficiency.
The summary didn’t explain that the proposed amendment lays out a specific method of determining the party affiliation of redistricting commission members, while the amendment would leave it to the GOP-controlled Ohio Ballot Board to determine the affiliations of members of the panel that would select those commissioners, Yost wrote.
“To be clear, a fair and truthful summary should articulate this distinction so that a signer can understand the Amendment’s true meaning and effect,” Yost’s letter said. “Otherwise, the summary misleads a signer into misbelieving that party affiliation is judged consistently and with the same objective criteria when it is not.”
Citizens Not Politicians submitted a third version of the summary language last Friday and Yost has until Oct. 2 to accept or reject it. The group was less than pleased with the latest ruling.
“We are disappointed and frustrated that the Attorney General has chosen to reject our petition summary for a second time,” its spokesman, Chris Davey, said in a statement. “We adjusted our summary language as the Attorney General requested on the first submission, and we know our summary language was accurate.”
The impacts of delays
Advocates of the gerrymandering amendment might seem like they have a long time to get their ducks in a row, but time can grow short quickly and delays can be disastrous for them.
It’s not perfectly analogous, but Yost played a role in another delay — one that helped kill an attempt to repeal the corruptly passed House Bill 6. That’s the bribery scheme in which Akron-based FirstEnergy paid more than $60 million and got a $1.3 billion ratepayer bailout in return. Former Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder, R-Glenford, is now serving a 20-year prison term for his role in the scandal, but somehow, HB 6 remains on the books.
The law was so objectionable that as soon as it passed in 2019, a strong effort at a voter-initiated repeal was announced.
Leaders of the attempted repeal had 90 days after the law’s enrollment to gather at least as many valid signatures as 6% of the number who voted in the most recent gubernatorial election — about 265,000 in 2019. But first, they had to submit a summary of the ballot language along with 1,000 valid signatures for review by the attorney general and the Ballot Board.
Yost rejected the first summary that was submitted and by the time a second was approved — along with another batch of 1,000 signatures — the repeal team had only 54 days left of the original 90 to submit more than a quarter-million valid signatures.
With 40% of the clock expired — and with FirstEnergy spending more than $30 million on a brutal, dishonest campaign to thwart the repeal — time ran out before circulators could gather enough signatures to get it on the ballot.
Anti-gerrymandering protest. (Photo by Olivier Douliery, Getty Images.)The timetable for the anti-gerrymandering isn’t nearly that compressed, but each passing week is crucial, Turcer, of Common Cause Ohio, said.
“It could be that this is standard operating procedure,” she said of the two rejections so far. “But it could slow things down so much that they can’t collect signatures during early voting and Election Day.”
She was referring to Nov. 7, when a closely watched abortion rights amendment is expected to draw many Ohioians to the polls. In-person early voting starts Oct. 11 — just 22 days away.
Turcer explained that early voting and Election Day are important for petition circulators because that’s when registered voters — the group eligible to sign petitions — are gathered at county boards of election during early voting and at polling places on Election Day.
Assuming Yost approves the summary language on Oct. 2, it still has to be approved by the Ballot Board and petition forms need to be printed.
“Citizen initiatives are incredibly challenging,” Turcer said. “But they’re much harder if you have a compressed time period.”
MARTY SCHLADEN
Marty Schladen has been a reporter for decades, working in Indiana, Texas and other places before returning to his native Ohio to work at The Columbus Dispatch in 2017. He’s won state and national journalism awards for investigations into utility regulation, public corruption, the environment, prescription drug spending and other matters.
Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost and 14 other attorneys general are arguing in federal court that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis was within his powers when he removed a local prosecutor who had spoken out against the state’s restrictive new abortion law.
But the group that represents Ohio’s local prosecutors doesn’t seem comfortable with that claim, expressing worries that the Florida case threatens the principle of “prosecutorial discretion” — that faced with many possible crimes and limited time and resources, prosecutors need great latitude to decide which cases are most wisely brought.
Yost said his friend-of-the-court brief doesn’t violate that principle. He said that he doesn’t want to impinge on prosecutors’ decisions about individual cases, but only to allow for their removal when they make blanket statements that they won’t enforce laws they don’t agree with.
“This case is about a ‘prosecutor’s veto’ — the nullification of a democratically passed law by the act of an executive,” Yost said in an email Thursday. “The application of discretion to a single case is proper; the application of discretion to every case arising under a statute eliminates the legislative act itself, the core function of a democratically elected government.”
Sunshine State spat
Yost on Wednesday led the Republican attorneys general in filing a friend-of-the-court brief with the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta. It argues that DeSantis — who is widely thought to be seeking the Republican presidential nomination — had the power to remove Hillsborough County prosecutor Andrew Warren last August over positions Warren took regarding the state’s new abortion law and other matters.
Warren, whose jurisdiction includes Tampa, signed declarations by a group of progressive prosecutors opposing charging people under laws restricting abortion and transgender care, the Florida Phoenix reported. DeSantis also objected to a Warren policy that his office usually would not bring low-level cases arising from bike or pedestrian stops in which a disproportionate number of minorities have historically been prosecuted, the Phoenix reported.
Warren sued DeSantis in U.S. district court in an attempt to be reinstated.
Judge Robert Hinkle found that DeSantis violated Warren’s First Amendment rights and separate provisions in the Florida Constitution by removing Warren. But, the judge ruled, the 11th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution barred him from reversing the removal because it was based solely on state law. In making the ruling, the judge looked past the First Amendment violation, saying DeSantis would have removed Warren even if he hadn’t violated the prosecutor’s free-speech rights.
Warren appealed to the 11th Circuit, arguing that Judge Hinkle’s reasoning was “perverse.”
“DeSantis’s violation of one (of Warren’s rights) cannot be permitted to excuse the violation of the other,” said a friend-of-the-court brief signed by Warren’s attorney. “The district court erred by ignoring the deeply intertwined nature of these protections. The decision below contributed to the disenfranchisement of Hillsborough County voters and allowed the governor to censor the speech of another duly elected official.”
Separation of powers
In their brief, Yost and the other Republican AGs argued that Warren and prosecutors like him jeopardize another constitutional principle when they say they’re not interested in bringing cases under laws with which they don’t agree — the separation of powers between the legislative and judicial branches of government. As part of the executive branch, it’s not a prosecutor’s job to decide which laws have force and which don’t, they said.
The attorneys general of Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah and West Virginia joined Yost in signing the brief. All of the states have some abortion restrictions on the books and most have laws that the Guttmacher Institute rates as “very restrictive” or “most restrictive.”
Local prosecutors can’t unilaterally decide not to enforce those or other laws, the amicus brief said.
“Those prosecutors have considerable discretion to decide whether to prosecute violations in particular cases,” the brief said. “They do not have the power to effectively repeal laws by categorically suspending enforcement.”
It added, “The states can properly remove from office prosecutors who make non-prosecution pledges. These pledges violate the traditional separation of powers between government branches.”
However, there are some devilish details involved. For example, how do you define “pledge” and how do you reconcile removing prosecutors for signing such documents with their right to free speech?
Lou Tobin, executive director of the Ohio Prosecuting Attorneys Association, slammed prosecutors who make such pledges.
He singled out Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner, who survived an impeachment attempt after Krasner said the office would no longer prosecute marijuana possession, would slash prosecutions of sex workers, sought reduced sentences for other crimes and called to abolish Pennsylvania’s death penalty. Tobin also slammed Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascon, who survived a recall attempt that started just when he took office. Like Krasner, Gascon did things like slash marijuana prosecutions and worked to end cash bail.
But perhaps tellingly, Tobin didn’t mention the Florida prosecutor DeSantis removed and he said such an action is exceedingly grave.
“Ohio has processes in place for the removal of public officers who refuse or willfully neglect to enforce the laws or to perform any official duty imposed by law,” Tobin said in an email Thursday. “It is a process that has been in place since before the General Code became the Revised Code in 1953, it does not involve the attorney general, it should not involve the attorney general, and it is a process that should be used rarely and with extreme caution.”
Tobin also seemed to call out DeSantis for acting out of political motives.
“Threats to unilaterally and summarily remove prosecutors from office are just as damaging to the justice system as people like Larry Krasner and George Gascon,” Tobin said. “We’re heading down a very dangerous road when those threats are made to score political points.”
More than abortion
In entering the dispute, Yost is again wading into national abortion politics. Last year, just after rushing to enact Ohio’s strict six-week abortion ban, the attorney general went on Fox News to question the existence of a 10-year-old rape victim who reportedly had to go to Indiana for an abortion. Days later, her existence was confirmed when Columbus police made an arrest in the case.
But Yost said that in filing the brief in the Florida case he wasn’t trying push local prosecutors to charge doctors every time they think abortion laws might have been violated. He was asked if he thought prosecutors should be able to bring a strong violent-crime or public-corruption case over a weak abortion case if they don’t have the resources to bring both.
“Of course,” Yost replied. “… this is a case about one politician’s arrogance to cancel an entire category of criminal prohibition that was enacted by the elected Legislature. If you don’t see the danger in that, imagine your own most hated politician — whomever that might be — vowing that they will not prosecute Clean Water Act violations because it’s a violation of private property rights. Should such arrogance be without redress? Of course not.”
Yost and his colleagues are arguing that prosecutors who say they won’t enforce abortion restrictions and other laws are abusing their power. But some critics argue that many of the post-Dobbs restrictions are themselves abuses of power. A majority of Americans don’t support them and many — such as Ohio’s six-week ban — were passed by gerrymandered legislatures.
But Yost said his effort isn’t solely about enforcement of Ohio’s abortion law, under which doctors could be charged with felonies.
“This is not an argument about abortion, although that was the individual motivation of the prosecutor who was removed,” he said. “But this same principle applies to prosecutors (who) would refuse to prosecute all thefts under a $1,000, or those who refuse to prosecute any firearms offense. Prosecutors do not get to make up the law, or revoke it — they only get to enforce it.”
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MARTY SCHLADEN
Marty Schladen has been a reporter for decades, working in Indiana, Texas and other places before returning to his native Ohio to work at The Columbus Dispatch in 2017. He’s won state and national journalism awards for investigations into utility regulation, public corruption, the environment, prescription drug spending and other matters.
CINCINNATI — In June of 2019, Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost thought a proposed utility bailout was a bad law, but he didn’t publicly oppose it because of support he’d received from the bailout’s primary beneficiary, FirstEnergy, according to lobbyists’ text messages displayed in court on Friday.
Prosecutors displayed the messages as part of the racketeering trial of former House Speaker Larry Householder and Matt Borges, a former Ohio Republican Party Chairman who was acting as a lobbyist at the time the utility bailout was debated and passed. They are accused in a scheme to use $61 million to make Householder speaker in 2019 so he could pass and protect a $1.3 billion bailout that mostly went to protect FirstEnergy’s failing nuclear and coal plants.
“Corruption doesn’t happen on an industrial scale like this without cash,” he said in a press conference. “And it’s incredibly important at this moment in our state’s history to send a message that the Ohio political system, the Ohio law-making system, the regulatory environment is not for sale. If you shut off the money spigot, the corruption withers.”
But behind the scenes 15 months earlier — according to text messages between Borges and lobbyist Juan Cespedes — Yost was pulling his punches on the bailout. Borges said Yost was doing so partly because of $24,000 he received from FirstEnergy and Borges in the cycle leading up to the 2018 election and the subsequent legislative session during which the bailout was passed.
Cespedes has pleaded guilty in the scandal and is expected to testify soon in the Householder trial.
But according to Borges, who had run earlier campaigns for Yost, the FirstEnergy money spigot helped guide the attorney general’s conduct as the bailout was making its way through the legislature. Text messages indicate that Borges was assigned to try to enlist Yost’s help with the bailout.
The legislation, House Bill 6, passed the Ohio House on May 29, 2019, and by the time of the June 26, 2019, text conversation between Borges and Cespedes, opposition to the bailout was growing as it was being debated in the Senate.
One source of opposition was from outside groups that were planning a ballot initiative to repeal HB 6 if it passed. Borges and Cespedes discussed trying to make it exempt from repeal by treating it as a revenue bill and calling it a tax — based on a $1 subsidy built into the measure.
Cespedes asked Borges what the attorney general thought.
“He’s sympathetic, but he wants to go back and look at the law,” Borges replied.
As they discussed the matter further, Borges said “Don’t repeat this,” but Yost believed the bailout was a bad law.
Yost “‘would be out front (in opposition) if not for (FirstEnergy) support and your involvement,’” Borges quoted Yost as saying.
As attorney general, Yost also would have to approve any repeal language before it went on the ballot. The AG also wanted to help with that if he could, Borges said.
“If there’s any way the law will allow him to reject the language, he will do it,” Borges texted.
“He was subpoenaed to potentially be a witness in this case,” the spokeswoman, Bethany McCorkle, said in an email. “At this time it is inappropriate for him to comment.”
Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost is appealing a Hamilton County judge’s order blocking the state’s six-week abortion ban indefinitely as the case over it proceeds.
In a news release, Yost’s office said they filed the notice of appeal after consulting with the office of Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine.
The release said the brief arguing its appeal would be filed after the trial court record is filed, as per Ohio law. As of Thursday afternoon, the brief was not available online from the Hamilton County Clerk of Courts.
In an Oct. 7 order, Hamilton County Judge Christian Jenkins said that abortion is health care to which Ohioans have a right.
Jenkins pointed to affidavits that had been submitted to the court by the ACLU and abortion clinics, telling stories of pregnancies that were not viable or caused patients to forgo cancer treatment, but were forced to continue because they were past the six-week gestation mark.
He said Ohio’s constitution does not allow women to be subject to such regulations, and gives no preference to any religion of specific ideological group under “rights of conscience.”
“Ohio’s constitution specifically and unambiguously recognized as fundamental the right to liberty … and the right to seek and obtain safety,” Jenkins said.
Before issuing the indefinite injunction against the ban, Jenkins had previously issued two temporary injunctions of two weeks each.
In arguing against the injunctions, Yost’s office claimed the abortion ban had become the status quo in Ohio after it was implemented at Yost’s request following the U.S. Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision overturning national abortion rights.
The Attorney General’s Office pointed to the case not being filed in the Hamilton County for two months after the law was implemented.
The two-month waiting period came as the Ohio Supreme Court had not yet moved forward on a lawsuit the clinics had filed in its court, but had denied an emergency stay of the ban.
Because of the delay, and harm the litigants said Ohioans were suffering, they asked the state supreme court to dismiss the lawsuit, so it could be moved to the current venue in southwest Ohio. The dismissal was granted.
Ohio’s abortion ban, Senate Bill 23, was passed in 2019 by the state legislature and signed into law by DeWine, but had been blocked by courts until the U.S. Supreme Court decision June 24.
But even though executives repeatedly used some form of the word “transparency,” they seem to be trying to get past the scandal without explaining to taxpayers and shareholders what, exactly, they did.
That’s kind of a big deal as the company asks states and the federal government to continue to trust it to handle taxpayers’ billions. It’s also a big deal in a health care arena where huge corporations have been accused of exploiting a lack of transparency to overcharge taxpayers vast sums of money.
Michael F. Neidorff, chairman, president and CEO of Centene Corp., on Wednesday told investors that the $153 million the company is paying two states and the $1.1 billion it plans to pay 20 others settles a matter that was cleared up years ago.
“The agreement addresses a situation from 2017 to 2018,” he said. “The policies and practices that created the situation were changed in 2019, making the matter very much a thing of the past. With this agreement, Centene will be able to put the situation behind us in a timely manner.”
To make sure none of the investment analysts viewing the presentation missed it, Neidorff hammered the point again.
“I would like to reiterate that the matter in the agreement is very much a thing of the past and we are looking forward to bringing this to resolution as we move ahead and focus on delivering the highest quality of care to our members,” he said.
The problem is, many states seem poised to accept settlement money and continue paying billions to Centene with only the vaguest idea of what the company did in 2017 and 2018, and what it might have cost taxpayers.
On Monday, Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost announced that Centene initiated settlement talks and just four months after Ohio sued the company, Centene had agreed to pay $88.3 million.
Because it’s the first — and so far only — state to sue in the matter, Ohio’s getting special treatment. If any state gets more, Centene will have to plus up its settlement with Ohio to match it, Yost said.
On Wednesday, Neidorff claimed that the state governments on which his company depended for much of its $120 billion in annual business deserved transparency.
“We have a deep respect for our state partners, and have addressed their concerns expeditiously, increasing the transparency of our pharmacy network,” he said.
But that transparency has been hard to spot in the company’s recent actions.
Centene’s press operation on Tuesday didn’t respond to a question asking for an explanation of the conduct over which the company was prepared to pay out $1.24 billion.
And on Wednesday, Centene’s six top executives answered a multitude of windy, jargon-laden questions from stock analysts. But they ignored another, seemingly simple one: Don’t taxpayers and shareholders deserve to know what Centene did to necessitate such a massive payout?
The company is presumably anxious to keep other states from suspending their enormous contracts the way the Ohio Department of Medicaid has. And the company clearly wants to stop attorneys general in other states from following Yost’s lead by filing lawsuits alleging that Centene bilked taxpayers out of tens of millions of dollars.
“Pursuing the matter in court could have involved litigation in 22 jurisdictions over the next three to five years,” Neidorff said. “And we all know what legal reserves and expenses that could have generated.”
Unless other states do sue, the Ohio suit and earlier investigations there might be the fullest picture the public gets of Centene’s alleged misconduct.
Yost’s team accused Centene of creating a non-transparent chain of pharmacy middlemen to overbill taxpayers through a few stratagems.
“One was double billing,” Yost said Monday. “A process by which they used more than one entity to process a claim and added costs to it — overbilling.”
Yost’s team also accused Centene of pocketing $6.7 million a year in funds that were intended to pay pharmacists to dispense drugs.
“They actually claimed they were paying more to the pharmacists than they actually were,” he said.
The AG also accused the company of marking up drugs by as much as $400,000 in a single week. In court filings, Centene denied the claims.
Mississippi, the other state with which Centene announced a settlement, was much less specific in its claims of wrongdoing.
“Following suspicions that PBMs were inflating their bills, in 2019, the auditor’s office launched an investigation to review invoices produced by a Centene-owned company,” a joint press release by Attorney General Lynn Fitch and state Auditor Shad White said. “Contracts required payments be capped by certain industry-standard prices, and the PBM was charging Medicaid more than the allowed price cap.”
Whether other state attorneys general will go into more detail is unclear. Those in Georgia, Florida, Kansas, New Mexico and Texas didn’t respond when asked whether they’ll seek settlement money from Centene or whether they’ll publicly describe what they believe the Medicaid contractor did wrong.
They should be more forthcoming as the process moves forward, said Greg Reybold, vice president and association counsel of the Georgia Pharmacy Association — a group that says Centene and other healthcare giants have used non-transparent middlemen to drive drug prices up and community pharmacists out of business.
“I think folks should know: What were some of the practices that were being investigated?” he said Tuesday.
Georgia has some distinct similarities to Ohio. For example Centene-owned managed-care organizations in both states saw much higher markups of generic drugs than their peers did.
An Ohio analysis showed that in 2017 all Medicaid managed-care plans were charging taxpayers far, far more for generic drugs than they were paying pharmacists. But Centene’s Buckeye Health Plan was charging almost double what the others were.
Buckeye marked up generics an average of $11.60 each for the 4.57 million generic prescriptions it handled, while the average of the other four Medicaid managed-care organizations under contract with Ohio Medicaid was about $5.95. That means middlemen working for Centene marked up generic drugs $26 million more than if they were charging what the others were — and the the analyst hired by the Ohio Department of Medicaid concluded that together, the plans were charging at least triple the going rate.
And it turned out that a Centene-owned pharmacy middleman was paid $20 million for services that had an identical description to services that another middleman, CVS Caremark, said it provided. Be that as it may, the companies later said they weren’t double-dipping.
Altogether, pharmacy middlemen working for Centene’s managed-care organization in Ohio charged $33 million more for the cheapest class of drugs in 2017 than they paid pharmacists. That was the highest rate for any of Ohio’s five managed-care organizations.
Similarly, an audit of fiscal year 2019 commissioned by the Georgia Department of Community Health determined that the difference between what Centene-owned Peach State Health Plan was charging taxpayers for drugs and what pharmacies were getting was far greater than it was for the state’s other three managed-care organizations.
A Myers and Stauffer report obtained by the Capital Journal said that at $12.93 per prescription, the Peach State markup in 2019 was almost quadruple the average of the other three plans.
Also similar to Ohio was that generic markups under the Centene managed-care organization totaled $30 million that year.
That’s a lot of coincidences, Reybold said.
“It begs the question, what isn’t being fleshed out?” he asked. “What don’t we know?”
Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost offers these consumer protection tips.
It’s already October and before you know it, the holiday shopping season will begin. As like many things this year, in-person shopping on Black Friday, Cyber Monday and other holiday promotions may be different than in years past.
This holiday shopping season, consumers should keep these tips in mind:
Check store hours: Stores that have previously been open may have reduced hours or may have limits on the number of customers in the store. Be sure to call or check the store’s website to confirm their hours and regulations.
Research products and sellers carefully: Search for complaints filed with the Ohio Attorney General’s Office and the Better Business Bureau. Also, look up customer reviews online and find out what previous customers have said about the product or seller especially if it’s your first time shopping with a particular seller.
Beware of scams: Watch out for phony Black Friday coupons, such as those offering hundreds of dollars to spend at a store and other claims that sound too good to be true. Be wary if someone asks you to pay using high-amount gift cards, which are commonly requested by scam artists.
Know stores’ return policies: Under Ohio’s consumer protection laws, sellers can choose to set their own return policies, including policies of no returns, but they must clearly tell you their policies before you complete the purchase. Also, ask if a return policy is different due to COVID or around the holiday season, as some stores increase their return periods during this time.
Important exclusions and limitations should be disclosed: Ads should clearly disclose important exclusions and limitations of an offer, so check to see if limited quantities are available, if a sale is valid only during certain hours or if other terms and conditions apply.
Rain checks apply only in certain situations: If a seller advertises a product at a certain price but sells out of that product by the time you respond to the ad, you may have the right to a rain check. However, sellers are not required to provide rain checks if they clearly disclose the number of goods available at that price or if they clearly state that no rain checks will be given.
Understand differences between gift cards: Gift cards are the most requested type of gift, according to the National Retail Federation, but not all gift cards carry the same protections. A gift card that is branded by a credit card company and can be used almost anywhere may reduce in value faster than a single-store gift card. Also, promotional cards, such as those that come free with a purchase, may not carry the same protections as other cards and may last only a short period of time. If you receive a gift card, it’s generally best to use it as quickly as possible to reduce the chance it will be lost, stolen or diminish in value. Be aware that if a business stops operating, you may not be able to use the gift card or receive a refund.
Keep cybersecurity in mind: When shopping for deals online, don’t use free public Wi-Fi when entering sensitive information like your credit card number. Keep apps, software and operating systems up to date and use secure websites when you need to enter personal information.
Paying with a credit card usually offers greater protection: In general, with a credit card, your responsibility for unauthorized charges is limited to $50, and you have certain rights to dispute charges that you may not have with a debit card or other forms of payment.
If you suspect a scam or an unfair business practice, contact the Ohio Attorney General’s Office at www.OhioProtects.org or 800-282-0515.
With the global pandemic, many parents and their children are turning more often to online resources using devices such as tablets, smartphones and laptop computers. Read on to apply cybersmart tips to help keep you and your children safe while online.
Whether they want them or not, many consumers are receiving robocalls telling them they are eligible for a lower interest rate on their credit card. Most likely, these calls are more than annoying – they’re also part of a scam. Read about these calls and what to do if you are really interested in a lower rate.
Ohioans should be on the alert for scammers posing as utility company representatives, and threatening to discontinue service to the customer unless the consumer provides personal information or immediate payment for utility service. Read on to learn more about these utility scams as well as where to turn if you need payment assistance.
An Akron-based utility company that figures prominently in a massive nuclear bailout scandal is saying that state regulators don’t have the authority to investigate whether the company improperly financed the bailout effort.
Over the past week, FirstEnergy Corp. has filed two documents with the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio saying that the commission and the state’s consumer representative don’t have standing to investigate whether FirstEnergy and affiliated companies improperly used ratepayer money in what has been called the largest bribery scandal in state history.
Marty Schladen has been a reporter for decades, working in Indiana, Texas and other places before returning to his native Ohio to work at The Columbus Dispatch in 2017. He’s won state and national journalism awards for investigations into utility regulation, public corruption, the environment, prescription drug spending and other matters.
Federal prosecutors say $60 million in utility money was used to pass a $1.3 billion nuclear bailout into law. But FirstEnergy says the utility commission lacks the authority to investigate whether it improperly used ratepayer funds in the affair.
“The commission lacks any statutory basis to conduct an investigation of FirstEnergy Corp. with respect to the alleged expenditures or to order FirstEnergy Corp. to show cause that it has not violated Ohio utility law,” FirstEnegy said in a Sept. 23 filing.
It was in response to an order by the utility commission that it show “that the costs of any political or charitable spending in support of (the bailout bill), or the subsequent referendum effort, were not included, directly or indirectly, in any rates or charges paid by ratepayers in this state.”
Federal prosecutors in July charged then-House Speaker Larry Householder and four associates with using $60 million from FirstEnergy and related interests in a scheme to make Householder speaker and pass a $1.3 bailout of two failing nuclear plants owned by FirstEnergy Solutions, a successor company to FirstEnergy Corp.
The effort was successful, although there is an effort in the legislature to repeal it before the charge hits ratepayers’ bills on Jan. 1.
FirstEnergy and associated companies haven’t been charged, but in announcing criminal charges against Householder, U.S. Attorney David M. DeVillers stressed that the investigation was far from over. An affidavit supporting the criminal complaint also refers repeatedly to “Company A,” or FirstEnergy, and it makes reference to its CEO.
In addition, Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost last week filed a civil suit that names FirstEnergy, a subsidiary and its successors — as well as Householder and his associates — as defendants.
The Ohio Consumers’ Counsel, the state’s official consumer representative in utility matters, has asked for an independent investigation into whether FirstEnergy improperly used ratepayer funds in the dark-money scheme to pass House Bill 6, the bailout legislation. The agency was disappointed when the utilities commission only directed the company to show that it had not acted improperly.
But even that is too much for FirstEnergy.
In documents filed on Monday with the utility commission, it said it was legally entitled to a reasonable profit. The company also seemed to argue that what it did with much of its money was nobody’s business.
“Beyond the investment necessary to provide adequate service, a public utility may spend its funds in the best interests of the utility as determined by its management.,” the company argued, later adding, “To the extent the Companies use a portion of their revenues to make political or charitable contributions, this is not improper or illegal.”
Columbus, Ohio – The coronavirus is raging in Ohio, but the state’s Republican leaders seem disinclined to enforce rules intended to protect against it. (How does Hamilton County avoid Level 4 Alert)
Attorney General Dave Yost won’t say whether he’ll support enforcement of new orders to wear masks in the state’s hardest-hit counties. And the official who issued them, Gov. Mike DeWine, has made several statements indicating that he doesn’t want to see anybody punished for not following measures intended to slow the spread of the deadly disease.
Mike Samet the Public Information Officer for Hamilton County Public Health told Loveland Magazine on Friday that from an enforcement perspective, as a county agency, the Health Department is not able to issue citations. “Nobody wants to be the mask police. This is education over enforcement, he said. Samet added that he wants people to understand why masks are important now, not punish them for non-compliance.
Ohio set a record for new cases Friday — 1,525 — after seeing them trend sharply upward over the past few weeks. The case count was nearly triplethe three-week average of 531.
Gov. Mike DeWine, has made several statements indicating that he doesn’t want to see anybody punished for not following measures intended to slow the spread of the deadly disease.
The news comes as six other states — Alabama, Idaho, Missouri, Montana, Oregon and Texas — set new single-day records of their own on Thursday. It also was the sixth day out of the past 10 in which the United States set one-day records for new cases of the coronavirus, which now has killed more than 3,000 in Ohio and more than 130,000 nationwide.
Also last week, a New York Times data analysis showed that the disease in the United States is taking on a disturbing racial dimension, with Blacks and Latinos around three times as likely as whites to get the new coronavirus.
The World Health Organization and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control both have said that widespread mask wearing would reduce the spread of the disease. One study indicated that if 80% of people wore them, the spread would plummet to one twelfth what it would be if nobody did.
Yet Yost, the state’s top law-enforcement officer, last week didn’t respond to questions about whether he supports enforcement of last week’s orders that people in Ohio’s 12 hardest-hit counties must wear masks inside public buildings.
In late March, Yost ordered that many abortions be halted in Ohio, arguing that the move was intended to conserve healthcare resources in the face of the coronavirus pandemic.
In June, he urged a municipal court to drop charges against a couple accused of opening their Cambridge-area restaurant in defiance of an earlier, DeWine-issued health order that it remain closed.
Then earlier this week, Yost said that the Columbus city government doesn’t have the power to enforce mask orders in state buildings — places where many Republican lawmakers have refused to wear them.
On Monday, a spokeswoman for Yost explained that the attorney general can’t have any official involvement in cases relating to health orders unless asked by local prosecutors. “We don’t have the authority,” the spokeswoman, Bethany McCorkle, said in a text message.
She added, however, that Yost has worn a mask since before there was a health order and encourages others to do the same.
The attorney general and his staff haven’t responded to subsequent questions about the order DeWine issued on Wednesday evening requiring masks in the worst-hit counties.
David Pepper (Photo from Ballotpedia)
Ohio Democrats are already up in arms about Republican legislative leaders’ refusal to share details about the spread of coronavirus in the Statehouse and surrounding office towers. David Pepper, the party chairman, on Friday slammed the attorney general for his apparent reluctance to support the enforcement of mask orders.
“As far as Dave Yost is concerned, refusing to enforce health orders is just one more example that the Ohio GOP has become the party of Donald Trump, Nino Vitale and John Becker,” Pepper said in a text message. “Sadly Ohio COVID cases are spiking because of it.”
“Even though initially it appeared that Mike DeWine was being guided by scientists and public health experts, it seems that politics and the desires of the business community are driving more of the governor’s decision making now,” party chairman David Pepper said.
President Donald Trump has repeatedly downplayed the pandemic, floated unproven cures for it and refused to appear in public wearing a mask. Among his other statements, Ohio Rep. Nino Vitale, R-Urbana, last Tuesday took to Facebook to urge Ohioans to stop even getting tested for coronavirus. And Ohio Rep. John Becker, R-Union Township, has introduced legislation that would strip state officials of the power to enforce any health order.
Meanwhile, in the absence of much support from his party, DeWine has said he doesn’t plan to use his authority under his mask order to arrest people for not following it.
Ohio Governor Mike DeWine
“We’re not talking about throwing people in jail,” DeWine said during a press conference Thursday. “This is a law to advise people what to do.”
DeWine has enjoyed overwhelming, bipartisan support over his handling of the coronavirus. But at least for Ohio’s top Democrat, patience might be wearing thin.
“Even though initially it appeared that Mike DeWine was being guided by scientists and public health experts, it seems that politics and the desires of the business community are driving more of the governor’s decision making now,” Pepper said. “Even with fewer cases, even West Virginia and Kentucky are being more proactive in addressing the pandemic.”
The Ohio Capital Journal is a hard-hitting, independent, nonprofit news organization dedicated to connecting Ohioans to their state government and its impact on their lives. The Capital Journal combines Ohio state government coverage with relentless investigative journalism, deep dives into the consequences of policy, political insight and principled commentary.
Columbus, Ohio – Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost today announced the development of new resources to address gaps in preventing targeted violence in schools. Training curriculum now available free for local school administrators, local law enforcement and others focuses on stopping violence before it starts.
“When a shooter attacks a school we often learn afterward, there were people who knew this person posed a threat. But nothing was done,” said Yost. “We aim to prevent school violence using national proven best practices. This is not a top-down approach. Instead, we’re providing guidance to local law enforcement and school districts to fill this critical need.”
The new training materials provide guidance on the use of threat assessment protocols, recognized by education and safety experts as effective means to enhance proactive targeted violence prevention efforts. The goal of a threat assessment is to identify persons of concern, assess their risk for engaging in violence or other harmful activities, and identify intervention strategies to manage that risk. The training is provided in a series of 10 video installments and a printed reference guide. These Ohio materials are also under review to be offered as an included resource on the new Federal School Safety Clearinghouse website, SchoolSafety.gov, launched earlier this month.
“This is more than training for cops or school principals,” said Yost. “The local, state and national experts in our videos make it clear that prevention only happens when parents are involved, the local school board is involved, counselors are involved. The material we’re posting today is for everyone. It gives us all a direct connection into the effort.”
“Many people in the education field are aware of the preventative value of threat assessment,” said Professor Dewey Cornell of the University of Virginia. A noted national expert on school safety and the prevention of school violence, Cornell is among the key experts whose insights are included in the new Ohio training materials. “This Ohio effort is unique in bringing together guidance from both law enforcement and educators, both inside and outside the state, and putting that information all in one location, giving schools a great jump-start on implementing it.”
“We train school administrators, school resource officers and others about using a threat assessment model, and this is an excellent compilation of national, state and local input,” said U.S. Secret Service National Threat Assessment Center Chief Dr. Lina Alathari. “It’s being provided in a manner that can easily and immediately reach any local school building and any local law enforcement agency. We’re pleased to be involved.”
As part of the program, grants are being made available to help local schools build their own threat assessment teams. School resource officers or other law enforcement personnel with primary responsibilities that include school safety may receive a $500 Ohio School Threat Assessment Training Grant when they complete the training and agree to help form or participate on a school-based threat assessment team.
In addition to the 10-part video training series focused on threat assessments of concerning persons, an additional companion video available only to law enforcement personnel focuses on identifying vulnerabilities in the physical school building and grounds. Law enforcement personnel must complete all 11 portions of the training to qualify for the grant.
“There’s no question, threat assessments and vulnerability assessments – when they’re done properly – can stop a lot of these incidents before they happen,” said Max Schachter, who founded the nonprofit Safe Schools For Alex after his 14-year-old son was killed in his English class during the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School massacre in Parkland, Florida in 2018. Schachter shares his thoughts within the training materials. “I feel that if a threat assessment had been done correctly, my little boy and 16 others might still be alive today. I want to thank Ohio for pushing this information to schools, law enforcement and families across the state.”
MARTY SCHLADEN
The 
In addition to the 10-part video training series focused on threat assessments of concerning persons, an additional companion video available only to law enforcement personnel focuses on identifying vulnerabilities in the physical school building and grounds. Law enforcement personnel must complete all 11 portions of the training to qualify for the grant.