The Five Dumbest Things on Wall Street This Week

4. Amerigroup's Pregnant Pause

Amerigroup (AGP Quote) shareholders were crying like a baby this week.

The Virginia Beach, Va., managed-care provider got slapped in court Tuesday with a $144 million judgment in a Medicaid discrimination case. Shares plunged 15% after the feds persuaded Illinois jurors that Amerigroup illegally sought to keep pregnant women in their third trimester from getting coverage.

"If they enrolled someone who was pregnant or sick, the HMO knew it would have to spend more money to care for them," Assistant U.S. Attorney Sam Cole said last month when the trial opened, the Chicago Sun-Times reported. "It's about discrimination. It's about profit. It's about greed."

No it's not, Amerigroup wails -- it's about "continuity of care." Or so the company's lawyer claimed in October.

Continuity of care clearly has been weighing heavily on the minds of busy Amerigroup execs. In 2001, the Sun-Times reports, the company's director of medical management sent out an email that read in part: "Please keep up the good work with the marketing reps of not trying to sign up pregnant women."

Amerigroup CEO Jeffrey McWaters pledges an appeal, saying Amerigroup openly disclosed its policies and was acting with the direction of the Illinois Department of Public Aid.

"We are a strong company," McWaters said Tuesday, "and will continue to work tirelessly to provide access to quality care for the 1.2 million low-income families, elderly and the disabled who depend upon us to do our job well."

For patients who aren't about to give birth, anyway.

Dumb-o-Meter score: 82. Jurors saw a videotape in which one executive said he sought out "the healthies" when signing up patients, the Associated Press reports.