Wow. Did you see this?
The Texas Attorney General’s Office today concluded the State’s Medicaid fraud investigation into Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast, Inc. Under today’s agreement, Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast must pay $1.4 million for fraudulently overbilling the taxpayer-funded Medicaid program.
After a whistleblower lawsuit was filed alleging improper billing practices by Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast, an investigation was opened by the Texas Attorney General’s Office and the Texas Health and Human Services Commission’s Office of Inspector General. The State’s investigation revealed that Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast improperly billed the Texas Medicaid program for products and services that were never actually rendered, not medically necessary, and were not covered by the Medicaid program – and were therefore not eligible for reimbursement. For example, state investigators determined that Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast falsified material information in patients’ medical records in order to support fraudulent reimbursement claims to the Medicaid program.
I guess it shouldn’t surprise me. After all, if you support euthanizing minorities because you think they are inferior, what’s a little theft of taxpayer money?
It was just last week that Planned Parenthood closed three centers and blamed it on “funding cuts”. Hmm. Could it have been that they were caught with their hands in the cookie jar and knew this was coming? Tried to get a little press from the recent abortion debate in the Texas Legislature?
From their press release announcing the closing of the centers:
Planned Parenthood has provided health care services in Southeast Texas for almost 40 years. We care deeply about your health; and are saddened the funding cuts forced us to close these health centers.
Hey, if your vision of health care is subjecting human life to a blender, I’m pretty happy that you’re closing a few shops and won’t be crying you a river.
Ever the euthanizing warrior, Planned Parenthood spokeswoman Rochelle Tafolla had this to say:
“The allegations in this complaint are baseless, and we are ending this case as a practical matter,” Rochelle Tafolla, a spokeswoman for Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast, said in a statement. She added that continuing the litigation would have been too lengthy and costly given “the hostile environment for women’s health” in Texas. “We are ending this lawsuit in order to devote all of our time and energy to delivering high-quality, affordable health care,” she said.
Oh sure. Organizations always fork over $1,400,000 in cash for baseless allegations. And they sell oceanfront property in North Dakota too!
The Texas Observer couldn’t pass up an opportunity to try and help their euthanizing friends, deciding to attack the whistleblower because the law says she gets a piece of the settlement:
Here’s where the story gets bizarre. The allegations against Planned Parenthood had been made in a whistleblower lawsuit. According to the Texas Medicaid Fraud Prevention Act, the whistleblower is entitled to some of the settlement money.
Oh no! Someone could profit by pointing out that Planned Parenthood stole money from the poorest of the poor! That’s “bizarre”. Alrighty then.
Planned Parenthood’s new motto? If you can’t kill ’em, steal from ’em.
Good points made here. Though i’m not sure if 1.4 mil is a lot of money for anyone in the “health care” industry. It sure sounds a lot to me, but not so much for folks who no doubt make so much more than I. Besides, companies settle a the time, regardless if they’re innocent or guilty of the charges. I’m not trying to defend Planned Parenthood, but just saying, it makes sense for them to settle. Though any settlement for opposing sides will look to it as a guilty verdict. Another point, I had no idea, until today, that whistle-blowers got paid…interesting; on another opposing side, one may question the motives of said whistle-blower.
“Whistleblowers” have gotten a cut of the recovery of fraudulently paid monies since the original False Claims Act was passed during the Civil War. I’m not as familiar with the state false-claims act, but the federal act also requires the fraud after to pay penalties of a multiple of the damages and to pay the government’s and relators’ legal fees.
Companies might settle a claim just to get out from under the headache of a lawsuit and to minimize the negative publicity of an ongoing case or trial. On the other hand, when you complain that you’re not really a crass abortion mill and that your sole focus is making sure that women have “full access” to “women’s healthcare,” and you’re invested in the story that you’re under constant assault in the GOP’s “war on women” — well, you can pay for a lot of lawyers to file papers and make statements that a friendly media is likely to reprint without analysis with $1.4 million. Unless you’ve calculated that fighting the allegations is more likely than not to result in some combination of (1) discovery that uncovers paperwork talking about the actual ages — and birth status — of the “fetuses” you’re aborting, or (2) a court’s judgment that you’re defrauding the government by overbilling, or (3) a court’s judgment that you’re defrauding the government by using government money to abort babies.
Figures…written by a MAN!