Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/529bv.pdf
Page Number: 751

529US3

Unit: $U55

[09-26-01 13:01:09] PAGES PGT: OPIN

676

FISCHER v. UNITED STATES

Opinion of the Court

ward an agent of an organization or of a State, local
or Indian tribal government, or any agency thereof, in
connection with any business, transaction, or series
of transactions of such organization, government, or
agency involving anything of value of $5,000 or more;
“shall be ﬁned under this title, imprisoned not more than
10 years, or both.

“(b) The circumstance referred to in subsection (a) of
this section is that the organization, government, or
agency receives,
in any one year period, beneﬁts in
excess of $10,000 under a Federal program involving
a grant, contract, subsidy, loan, guarantee, insurance,
or other form of Federal assistance.

“(c) This section does not apply to bona ﬁde salary,
wages, fees, or other compensation paid, or expenses
paid or reimbursed, in the usual course of business.”

Liability for the acts prohibited by subsection (a) is predi-
cated upon a showing that the defrauded organization “re-
in any one period, beneﬁts in excess of $10,000
ceive[d],
§ 666(b). Those beneﬁts can be
under a Federal program.”
in the form of “a grant, contract, subsidy, loan, guarantee,
insurance, or other form of Federal assistance.”
Ibid. All
agree Medicare is a federal assistance program, see 42 CFR
§ 400.200 (1999), and that WVHA, as the organization de-
frauded by petitioner’s actions, received in excess of $10,000
in payments under the program. The sole point in conten-
tion is whether those payments constituted “beneﬁts” within
the meaning of subsection (b).

Petitioner argues that the Medicare program provides
beneﬁts to the elderly and disabled but not to the health care
organizations. Provider organizations, in petitioner’s view,
do no more than render services in exchange for compensa-
tion. Under petitioner’s submission the Medicare program
envisions a single beneﬁciary, the qualifying patient. The
in opposition, urges that a determination
Government,