The U.S. government said it recovered a record $4 billion in fines and fraudulent health- care payments last year

The U.S. government said it recovered a record $4 billion in fines and fraudulent health- care payments last year .
The results for fiscal year 2010 fraud-fighting result from a crackdown by the Obama administration that enforcement officials plan to expand this year with tools created in the 2010 health law, the U.S. Health and Human Services Department said today.

“We want to make it possible to cut off the flow of funds to suspected criminals before they can take the money and run,” said Kathleen Sebelius, secretary of the agency, at a press conference.

The crackdown started two years ago, Sebelius said, with the creation of a joint program with the U.S. Justice Department. The agencies increased the number of local fraud task forces to seven from two, including areas such as Brooklyn, New York; Tampa, Florida; and Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

Cases included Allergan Inc., the Irvine, California, maker of the drug Botox, which was fined $600 million for improperly marketing the wrinkle-reducing drug; and London-based AstraZeneca LP, the recipient of a $520 million fine for improper marketing of antipsychotic drug Seroquel, the department said.

Expanding Efforts

The health law signed by U.S. President Barack Obama in March 2010 expands the government’s health-care fraud fighting efforts, Sebelius said.

The law lets the government withhold Medicare and Medicaid payments to health-care service providers that are under investigation, which the government couldn’t do previously, Sebelius said.

Medicare is the U.S. government insurance program for the elderly and disabled, while Medicaid serves the poor. The law can stop the addition of health providers to Medicare and Medicaid in places or service types where fraud has become prevalent.

The government will use screening software similar to the type used by credit card companies to spot fraudulent charges, according to a government summary of the rules.

'Hannah Montana' brings Disney high ratings

After nearly five years and more than 100 new episodes on Disney Channel, Hannah Montana wrapped up with a bang.

ABC says that Sunday's series finale of the show that made Miley Cyrus a household name delivered 6.2 million viewers, outperforming its record-setting fourth-season average by 9 percent.

The finale was cable's No. 1 telecast in the 7 p.m. hour among kids 6-11 and tweens 9-14, and posted Disney Channel's highest ratings ever in the hour in total viewers and among kids 6-11.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY to Paul Cézanne

19 January 1839 – 22 October 1906) was a French artist and Post-Impressionist painter whose work laid the foundations of the transition from the 19th century conception of artistic endeavor to a new and radically different world of art in the 20th century. Cézanne can be said to form the bridge between late 19th century Impressionism and the early 20th century's new line of artistic enquiry, Cubism. The line attributed to both Matisse and Picasso that Cézanne "is the father of us all" cannot be easily dismissed.

Cézanne's work demonstrates a mastery of design, colour, tone, composition and draftsmanship. His often repetitive, sensitive and exploratory brushstrokes are highly characteristic and clearly recognizable. He used planes of colour and small brushstrokes that build up to form complex fields, at once both a direct expression of the sensations of the observing eye and an abstraction from observed nature. The paintings convey Cézanne's intense study of his subjects, a searching gaze and a dogged struggle to deal with the complexity of human visual perception.
One of the most influential artists in the history of twentieth-century painting, Paul Cézanne (1839–1906) has inspired generations of modern artists. Generally categorized as a Post-Impressionist, his unique method of building form with color and his analytical approach to nature influenced the art of Cubists, Fauvists, and successive generations of avant-garde artists. Beginning to paint in 1860 in his birthplace of Aix-en-Provence and subsequently studying in Paris, Cézanne's early pictures of romantic and classical themes are imbued with dark colors and executed with an expressive brushwork in the tradition of Eugène Delacroix (1798–1863). Dramatic tonal contrasts and thick layers of pigment (often applied with a palette knife) exemplify the vigor in which Cézanne painted during the 1860s, especially apparent in the portrait series of his uncle Dominique Aubert, variously costumed as a lawyer, an artist, and a monk (53.140.1; 1993.400.1). This kind of costume piece is reminiscent of Édouard Manet's Spanish paintings of the 1860s.