Planned Parenthood Aborts the "Whistleblower lawsuit"

Following the recent heated debates in the legislature over the new abortion bill, Planned Parenthood isn't receiving any publicity to help its cause. Near the end of July, the Texas Attorney General's Office concluded that State's Medicaid fraud investigation into Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast. Planned Parenthood was exposed for fraudulently over-billing the taxpayer-funded Medicaid program. Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast had been filing improper billing practice. The investigation revealed the Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast had been billing 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 investigation has led to Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast paying 1.4 million to the Medicaid program for their fraudulent activities. (To read more on the investigation, visit Big Jolly Politics)

This is absolutely the last thing that Planned Parenthood needed following the recent abortion bill that closed down the majority of their clinics in Texas. Throughout the entirety of the legislature's discussion over the bill, Planned Parenthood was making their case around the fact that their clinics would be shut down if the bill passed because of the lack of federal and state funding. This can be seen with Planned Parenthood's press release following the bill, "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." After making such claims, the last thing you would want is to be caught in the middle of fraudulent acts. Planned Parenthood just lost a huge amount of credibility.

The best part of this whole story is that Rochelle Tafolla, the spokesperson for Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast said that continuing the litigation would have been too lengthy and costly given "the hostile environment for women's health" in Texas. The hostile environment for women's health? Since when did public debate and argument all of a sudden become hostile? I'm pretty sure I've always learned in my college courses that debate and alternative views on issues are productive and can lead to better solutions to problems. The only thing that's hostile in this situation is stealing 1.4 million dollars that would go towards helping women and their health! Tafolla goes on to say, "We are ending this lawsuit in order to devote all our time and energy to delivering high-quality, affordable health care." Interesting that with all the recent "funding cuts", Planned Parenthood is willing to just fork over $1.4 million without a fight. It just goes to show that they were caught red handed. It sounds to me that Tafolla and her organization need to devote more time and energy to becoming a credible company and improve their integrity if they want to represent women in a positive manner in future women's health debates. With Planned Parenthood being such a crucial women's health advocate, they just did all women a huge injustice with this recent scandal by possibly jeopardizing the credibility of women's health representation in the future. It will be interesting to see if the Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast branch is the only Planned Parenthood branch in Texas that has committed these fraudulent acts.