The settlement with New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin brings to an end a lawsuit against Horizon initiated by several whistleblowers. Rising expenses in the state employee health plan had been pushing up costs for taxpayers for years.
The state entrusted Horizon to provide benefits for hundreds of thousands of workers. But a yearslong investigation “revealed that Horizon betrayed that trust and took advantage of the state,” Platkin said at a news conference in Newark on Friday.
Platkin called the Horizon pact the single largest False Claims Act settlement in New Jersey state history, outside of Medicaid.
A former state official had raised alarms several years ago about how Horizon was handling a state contract to administer billions of dollars in payments to hospitals and doctors. Horizon is New Jersey’s largest health insurer, covering about 3.7 million people.
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The official, Christin Deacon, filed a whistleblower lawsuit along with others seeking to recover money from Horizon on behalf of New Jersey. The case remained under seal before the resolution was disclosed in court filings on Friday.
Horizon denied that it engaged in fraud as part of the settlement. The company accused Platkin of “mischaracterizing and distorting facts to falsely allege intentional wrongdoing where none exists,” in a statement from spokesperson Thomas Wilson.
The company called the investigation a waste of time...
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