Federal sentencing can seem unjustly harsh. Consider the following hypothetical: A defendant in a health care case is charged with conspiracy to commit health care fraud and five substantive counts of health care fraud. Each of the substantive counts involves a loss to the insurance company of $6,500, equating to a sentencing range of 0 to 6 month's imprisonment under the advisory guidelines. The overall conspiracy involved the submission of $3.5 million in allegedly fraudulent claims, but based on a n audit the insurer only paid the amounts associated with the substantive counts, or $32,500.