by Dr. Susan Berry
Breitbart.com
A federal whistleblower lawsuit has been filed against Planned Parenthood of Houston and Southeast Texas, now known as Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast, charging the provider of abortion services with fraudulent Medicaid claims in the amount of nearly $6 million.
The lawsuit, filed by the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF), on behalf of former Planned Parenthood clinic director, Abby Johnson, accused Planned Parenthood of submitting over 87,000 “false, fraudulent, or ineligible claims for Medicaid reimbursements” under Title XIX, in association with the Texas Women’s Health Program.
The Medicaid claims, filed between 2007 and 2009, were valued at more than $5.7 million. The lawsuit alleges that Planned Parenthood knowingly committed Medicaid fraud by “improperly seeking reimbursements from the Texas Women’s Health Program for products and services not reimbursable by that program.”
In an interview with LifeSiteNews, Ms. Johnson said that she filed the lawsuit to “expose the corruption” at Planned Parenthood and “to show the taxpayer how their money is being spent at Planned Parenthood.”
In her lawsuit, Ms. Johnson describes a meeting held at Planned Parenthood, in late 2008-early 2009, during which clinic directors were informed that the organization had been falsely billing the Texas Women's Health Program since January 1, 2007. Ms. Johnson claims that, when she asked what Planned Parenthood would do about the money it received improperly, her supervisor responded, "Well, we are going to hope we don't get caught."
The lawsuit alleges that clinic managers, like Ms. Johnson, were directed to continue to bill for ineligible products and services, as they persisted in purging and falsifying patient files, charging for them afterward to make them appear legitimate.
Planned Parenthood is also being investigated in a federal probe led by Congressman Cliff Stearns (R-Florida). According to the ADF, Planned Parenthood officials have been responsible for more than $100 million in waste, fraud, and abuse of taxpayer money.
In a news release on Friday, ADF Senior Counsel Michael J. Norton said:
Americans deserve to know if their hard-earned tax money is being funneled to groups that are misusing it…everyone should agree that Planned Parenthood has to play by the same rules as everyone else. It certainly isn’t entitled to a penny of public funds, especially if it is committing Medicaid fraud.
The announcement of the lawsuit came as the Obama administration also revealed that federal funding would no longer be granted to the Texas Women’s Health Program because the state now bans affiliates of entities, such as Planned Parenthood, that perform or promote elective abortions, from participating in the Medicaid program. HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said that the administration would be defunding the program, leaving about 130,000 low-income women without health screenings and contraceptive services, if Planned Parenthood, a major supporter of the Obama administration, is not permitted to participate in the women’s Medicaid program.
The recent series of events involving Planned Parenthood in the state of Texas illustrate an administration steeped in hypocrisy, involved in a codependent relationship with an organization that promotes the killing of the unborn as it also soaks taxpayers. These events demonstrate all too clearly that the “War on Women” is merely a fairy tale cooked up by an administration that is desperate to regain its political clout. Sadly for both low-income women and taxpayers, the Obama administration's actions illustrate that it cares nothing for either group, primarily because they are useless to them politically, except when they can be used as pawns to achieve political gain. The mission of the unholy alliance of the Obama administration and Planned Parenthood is simply to hold fast to political power, regardless of who is in their way.
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