CVS Strangled, Then Swallowed, Rite Aid

Just days after CVS Caremark was slapped with a $290 million fine for defrauding Medicare, bankruptcy trustees representing Rite Aid sued the pharmacy benefit manager for nearly twice that amount for allegedly operating an unlawful and anticompetitive prescription drug profit “scheme.” The new complaint filed this month asserts that CVS Caremark “devastated” Rite Aid by overcharging an estimated $500 million in fraudulent “clawback” penalties — fees that CVS Caremark demanded long after drug prescriptions were filled. This comes as Rite Aid, once the third-largest pharmacy chain in the United States, is being stripped for parts in bankruptcy court and sold to its competitors, including CVS Health — the $90 billion health care behemoth that operates more than 9,000 retail pharmacies as well as CVS Caremark and the insurance giant Aetna.