Planned Parenthood paid millions in Medicaid fraud settlements

August of 2013 I ran a story about the massive Medicaid fraud perpetrated by Planned Parenthood. It was the time of the Susan Komen Foundation headliner about supporting/not supporting Planned Parenthood and the ultimate reveal that PP did not provide Mammograms for women even though they claimed they did. But that story was merely a distraction by the media from the massive fraud investigation of PP. So here we go and let’s take a look:

Have you heard anything about what is becoming apparent? The overbilling of Medicaid by Planned Parenthood in  up to 12 States? Here we go:

Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott’s office stated that its investigation into the fraud allegations “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.”

The Texas Planned Parenthood allegedly “falsified material information in patients’ medical records” to bolster fraudulent claims for reimbursement.

Alliance Defending Freedom’s recent analysis of state and federal audits of family planning programs suggests that in 12 states, Planned Parenthood affiliates overbilled Medicaid for more than $8 million. One federal audit of New York’s Medicaid family planning program reported that certain providers, “especially Planned Parenthoods,” had engaged in improper practices resulting in overpayment.

 

There’s a whopping four-paragraph story headlined “Planned Parenthood finalizes $4.3 million lawsuit settlement.” That was an update of the earlier story they ran — the seven-sentence AP story that said the settlement was $1.3 million. Way to put those local resources to work, fellas!

Planned Parenthood trotted out the usual corporate line that settlement wasn’t an admission of guilt — which might be the shriveled fig leaf the “mainstream media” would use to say it’s not newsworthy. But wait — Texas isn’t the only state where this fraud might be occurring, as the Heritage Foundation reported:

Alliance Defending Freedom’s recent analysis of state and federal audits of family planning programs suggests that in 12 states, Planned Parenthood affiliates overbilled Medicaid for more than $8 million. One federal audit of New York’s Medicaid family planning program reported that certain providers, “especially Planned Parenthoods,” had engaged in improper practices resulting in overpayment.

Despite mounting accusations of fraud, the organization that performs roughly one out of every four abortions in the U.S. has continued to ride the waves of taxpayer funding to annual surpluses. During its last reporting year alone, Planned Parenthood received over half a billion dollars in taxpayer government funding, all the while performing a record 333,964 abortions.

Hemingway summarized it perfectly:

Isn’t it just fascinating, though, that a private breast cancer charity choosing to not give money to a massively federally funded group (that provides 300,000 abortions a year but zero mammograms) is top of the news for weeks — complete with breathless advocacy from reporters and anchors — but Medicaid fraud in the millions of dollars barely registers even the tiniest of blips in the news cycle? What’s the journalistic defense, if any?

H/T:Newsbusters