From American Progress:
ETHICS -- HOUSE COMMITTEE REPORT FINDS DEFENSE CONTRACTORS GOUGING U.S. TAXPAYERS
A new report from the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee has found that a "Pentagon program for providing workers' compensation for civilian employees in Iraq and Afghanistan has allowed defense contractors and insurance companies to gouge American taxpayers."
The report says that "insurance companies alone have collected nearly $600 million in excessive profits over the past five years" because defense contractors are allowed to negotiate their own insurance contracts. Iraq war profiteer KBR "paid the insurance giant AIG $284 million for medical and disability coverage," but "because of the way KBR's contract is structured, this premium, along with an $8 million markup for KBR, gets billed to taxpayers."
Chairman Henry Waxman (D-CA) said, "Out of this amount, just $73 million actually goes to injured contractors, and AIG and KBR pocket over $100 million as profit." Asked if taxpayers were getting the most for their money, John Needham of the Government Accountability Office said, "It's not apparent they are."
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