How Can Whistleblowers Help Fight Fraud?

Fraud costs taxpayers billions of dollars every year at every level of government. Healthcare fraud impacts Medicare and Medicaid, taking dollars out of those programs that otherwise would go to much-needed medical care. Fraud by government contractors hits the budgets of federal, state and local agencies, from the Pentagon to city housing departments. Investigators and prosecutors work with scarce resources to police a virtual tidal wave of wrongdoing. To help ferret out fraud, the U.S. government, many states, and some cities have False Claims statutes that enable citizens to act as whistleblowers and bring lawsuits on behalf of the government.