Obama administration threatens to blackmail Indiana for defunding Planned Parenthood
According to the New York Times on May 22:
The Obama administration is raising serious objections to a new Indiana law that cuts off state and federal money for Planned Parenthood clinics providing health care to low-income women on Medicaid….
Federal officials have 90 days to act but may feel pressure to act sooner because IN is already enforcing its law, which took effect on May 10, and because legislators in other states are working on similar measures.
If a state Medicaid program is not in compliance with federal law and regulations, federal officials can take corrective action, including “the total or partial withholding” of federal Medicaid money. The mere threat of such a penalty is often enough to get states to comply. Actually imposing the penalty would, in many cases, hurt the very people whom Medicaid is intended to help.
Administration officials said the IN law imposed impermissible restrictions on the freedom of Medicaid recipients to choose health care providers.
So Obama is threatening to blackmail IN by holding its poor hostage, willing to cut them off from any medical care whatsoever solely to keep PP on the dole. That’s how much Obama loves PP. This article’s title tells it like it is…
According to CBS News, the money we’re talking here is $2 million lost to PP and a bare minimum of $4 million withheld from the state by the feds.
News-Sentinel.com has a great editorial on this. Excerpt:
According to a statement approved by the White House, IN’s law is not needed because federal law already prohibits federal dollars from being spent on abortion. Furthermore, Medicaid does not allow “states to stop beneficiaries from getting care they need – like cancer screenings and preventive care – because their provider provides certain other services.”
“Certain other services” are abortions, in case the language is too subtle for you. The WH’s stance shows the big lie in the claim that government money won’t be used for them. Money is fungible – that is, one dollar is the same as any other. If the government gives money for things such as screenings and preventive care, that frees up PP to use its other dollars for abortions.
And forgive us the metaphor, but surrounding abortions with all those other “needed services” is a little like terrorists putting their hideouts in neighborhoods full of innocent civilians: Take us out if you dare, but be prepared for collateral damage. Why must those needed services be provided by PP? State officials have said they will make sure to provide them elsewhere.
Wow on that last paragraph.
Yes, recall IN PP has only 28 clinics throughout a state with 92 counties. Meanwhile there are a combined hundreds if not thousands of doctors offices, immediate care clinics, county health departments, and Federally Qualified Health Clinics in IN that provide all the same services to Medicaid patients – and much more – than PP. As Gov. Mitch Daniels said when signing the bill, “We will take any actions necessary to ensure that vital medical care is, if anything, more widely available than before.”
LifeNews.com reported yesterday that IN officials are arguing in court, where PP is suing to block the new law, “there is ‘no record that PPIN makes any effort to either segregate Medicaid reimbursements from other unrestricted revenue sources… indicat[ing] that… the Medicaid reimbursements it does receive are pooled or comingled with other monies it receives and thus help to pay for total operational costs.”
Meanwhile, in a late development, CBS News is reporting that 30 Democrat senators sent a letter to HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius yesterday urging her to warn states not to try to defund PP.
Jill Stanek is a nurse turned speaker, columnist and blogger, a national figure in the effort to protect both preborn and postborn innocent human life.
I wish them all a very Merry defunding in 2011!
What the heck does this have to do with Planned Parenthood?
If a state Medicaid program is not in compliance with federal law and regulations, federal officials can take corrective action, including “the total or partial withholding” of federal Medicaid money.
Those laws and regs were in effect long before Obama came into office… If IN does not comply with Medicade fed regs then they get no fed money…
So, stretching the facts to try to connect this to Planned Parenthood?
Littlez,
Planned Parenthood has been skirting the Hyde amendment for years and getting away with it by playing shell games with the money. Indiana is just calling their bluff. PP never should have gotten any Medicaid funds to begin with unless they stop commiting abortions.
Truthseeker – You are mistaken. The Hyde amendment says that no federal funds can be used to pay for abortion. There is no shell game. Abortion is less than 5% of the services that Planned Parenthood provides at discounted rates. PP gets federal Title X money to help pay for the other 95% of the services they do. As for abortions PP solicits private donations to help pay for abortions that clients cannot afford. That Title X money goes to pay for Disease treatment and prevention, pap tests, breast cancer screenings, and a host of other sexual health treatments and screenings.
Zero federal money goes to pay for abortions. In fact at my local PP the employees volunteer to donate $5-$20 per paycheck to the uninsured abortion fund. I know it doesn’t help your cause to believe what I am saying but they are the facts. I personally disagree with the Hyde amendment but it is the law. Zero federal funds pay for abortions at Planned Parenthood Clinics.
“Abortion is less than 5% of the services that Planned Parenthood provides at discounted rates.”
So absurd. A pregnancy test is a “service”. And what does it cost?
Abortion is where the $$$$$$$ are.
They break even on the other “services” and the higher ups collect their big salaries from abortion. If abortion didn’t make them money, they could quit tomorrow and operate on a shoestring like other real charities do.
Indiana should call their bluff.
The United Sates separated from England because the King of England was forbidding individual Colonies from enacting their own law and enforcing them. If the President did cut off Federal Funding, then he would be doing the very same thing that caused the separation from England.
It’s illogical and obsurd to the Nth degree to say giving funds to an organization that preforms abortions isn’t funding those abortions. Nurses on staff get paychecks for their days work, be that work treating an STD or helping with an abortion. The electric is turned on during all business hours in all rooms, waiting rooms, exam rooms, and abortion rooms. Rent gets paid for the whole building. The order of sterile gloves used for physical examination during a diaphram fit are also used while doing an abortion. Exactly how could you even theoretically fund ‘non abortions services’ without also funding abortions? Everything that goes on is paid for out of the monies received by the organization, money that is pooled to pay for those resources and bills. It is utterly impossible for any money given to PP (or any other abortion provider) to not end up ‘funding’ the abortion arm of the organization. Abortion is supposed to be all about a woman’s private right to do as she wants with her own body, what other elective, private procedure do we have to pay for? Boob job? Nose job? Heck, even gastric bypass surgery? Nope. Even *if* it’s correct that women have some fundamental right to abortion like they have to other forms of medical services, a person only has a right to whatever elective medical services *they can afford or procure themselves*, and not to whatever elective medical services they *want*.
…”a new Indiana law cuts off state and federal money for Planned Parenthood clinics providing health care to low-income women on Medicaid….”
Does that mean the Indianna legislators have violated federal law and are guilty of ‘interfering with a person’s use of a program that receives federal funds’?
This is a new federal law.
I wonder if it was also included in that health care bill that missy/madam peelosi said must be passed BEFORE we could know what was in it.
“We are all born ignorant, but one must work hard to remain stupid.’” [as madam peelosi.]
Benjamin Franklin
‘”It may be that missy peelosi’s sole purpose in life is simply to serve as a warning to others.’”
Biggz,
Lets say Planned Parenthood has $100 and their electrical bill is $100 and the cost of commiting an abortion on someone is $20. At this time they are unable to commit abortion because they do not have the funds. The government gives them $20 and says it can’t be used for abortion. Planned Parenthood can now take the $20 from the account that was being used to pay the electric bill and uses it to commit abortion on someone. Then they deposit the $20 into the account that they can use to pay the electric bill. Cash is fungible and the purpose of the Hyde amendment was to prevent government monies from supporting abortion services period. Indiana is getting it right and several more states are sure to follow suit.
Well said Jespren. Sorry we crossed paths a little hard on the topic of judgement. Fear of the Lord’s righteous judgement is a gift of the Holy Spirit. I just try to make sure humans don’t meet out the judgement themselves. Glad to see you still hanging around Jill’s blog. The peace of Jesus Christ be with you.
Allan, that is a great analogy about the original colonies.