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The "Medicare Unmasked” series examined the $600 billion Medicare program, stemming from The Wall Street Journal's legal and journalistic efforts to prod the government to publicly release doctor-billing data that had been kept secret for decades. A team of Journal reporters created numerous programs to analyze the government numbers, using them to spin out articles that uncovered medical abuses that cost taxpayers. The series had big impact. The CEO of a large laboratory resigned under pressure soon after the Journal revealed it used a controversial medical practice. The Journal also broke news of an FBI investigation into a medical practice the newspaper had identified as collecting far more from Medicare for a single procedure than any other medical provider. And an ousted Walgreen executive sued the drugstore giant alleging widespread Medicare-related abuses there, citing a Journal article that revealed a $1 billion forecasting error in Walgreen's Medicare business. The Journal has been widely recognized for its Medicare efforts. Margaret Sullivan, the New York Times Public Editor, praised the Journal for its “time, expense and persistence” in pursuing the once-secret Medicare data, calling it a “cornerstone of investigative reporting."