Breaking, Medicaid misinformation revealed: Planned Parenthood caught on tape admitting Indiana women can manage fine without it
UPDATE, 12:16p: Lila Rose will appear on The O’Reilly Factor tonight to discuss the Indiana Planned Parenthood investigation! She’ll be in the 8:25p EST segment.
UPDATE, 11:22a: I’m sure she didn’t intend to, but MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow corroborated on her show last week that Planned Parenthood serves 1% (“more than 9,000”) of all Indiana Medicaid patients (“nearly 1,000000”).
UPDATE, 7:13a: Lila will be on Laura Ingraham’s radio show at 9:30a to discuss this latest undercover investigation.
6:34a: Undercover phone calls released today show Planned Parenthood of Indiana clinic staffers at various locations admitting Medicaid patients have only to look around the corner to get healthcare.
Planned Parenthood and its supporters claim poor women in Indiana will lose access to vital healthcare services if they cannot go to Planned Parenthood.
But a new Live Action investigation shows the reality is quite the opposite….
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UqLL-v0JpY0[/youtube]
In a related press release, Live Action President Lila Rose called Indiana “Ground Zero” in the national battle to defund Planned Parenthood, America’s largest abortion business.
As more and more states move to defund Planned Parenthood, it tries to fool Americans into believing it is the only game in town to provide healthcare to Medicaid patients.
Yet in reality PP has only 28 clinics in Indiana, while there are 800 other Medicaid providers in the state.
In reality, according to PP’s own statistics, it sees only 1% of all Medicaid patients in the state. (PP states it sees 9,300 IN Medicaid patients, while IN has an enrollment of 1,022,700.)
Meanwhile, in reality, PP commits over 50% of abortions in Indiana. (Latest statistics available show IN PPs commits 5,580 abortions annually while a total of 10,680 abortions are committed annually in IN.)
Last week LA’s undercover investigators called 16 of the 28 IN PP clinics posing as women on Medicaid concerned about where they could receive services if PP’s funding was not restored.
PP staffers at all 16 locations freely admitted Medicaid women would still have access to medical care after the defunding. Staffers suggested local health clinics or state-assigned primary care physicians for Medicaid patients: “Your primary care doctor should be able to do [a Well Woman exam,] I mean, that’s what they’re there for,” said a PP in Michigan City, while the Merrillville PP said of a local community health center, “They have the same services we have.”
The Obama administration has come to Planned Parenthood’s aid by threatening to deny billions in low-income healthcare funds unless Indiana starts contracting with PP.
“The Obama administration is holding patients’ health hostage in return for funding the largest abortion provider in the country,” asserted Lila Rose. “This abuse of power is a threat to every other state – that no matter the cost or consequences, this Administration will sacrifice healthcare for the needy to continue pouring tax dollars into Planned Parenthood.”
In conjunction with the investigative video release, Live Action is today launching a “Stand with Indiana” petition drive, exposing Planned Parenthood’s deception and demanding that Obama revoke his intervention on their behalf. I just signed it. Hope you will, too. We really need to support Indiana.
“Planned Parenthood has lied in covering up sex trafficking and statutory rape, lied about abusing taxpayer dollars, lied about mammograms, and now lies about Medicaid – all in the interest of protecting the taxpayer subsidies of their abortion business,” said Rose. “States and their citizens no longer want to fund this corrupt organization.”
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.
Well done, Live Action! I still cannot believe the number of ignorant people who actually believe that pro-life GOAL is to keep women from getting pap smears, contraception, etc. We’ve carefully crafted these defunding laws to ensure that non-lethal providers of legitimate gynecological care are unaffected. The real threat to health care access for low-income people comes from the Obama administration’s heavy-handed “pro-choice” response. I’ve shared this video on facebook and will continue to spread it far and wide!
I think the whole planned parenthood discussion has been an interesting one. Never set foot in one or near one – no strong feelings either way on their funding. I suppose as an American, I’m not a fan of the government telling me where I should and shouldn’t services from – and I suppose that is the interesting part of the debate. It appears that the far right does see circumstances in which they are okay having the government step in and dictating where a tax-paying American goes for legal services, or doesn’t go – and is in favor, at times, or greater government regulation.
I love these debates that flip things – when the Democrats end up more pro-war than Republicans, when the Republicans want more regulation – those debates are always interesting to me.
@ex-GOP voter:
Hopefully not derailing the topic here, but the far right is not in any way “stepping in and dictating where a tax-paying American goes for legal services, or doesn’t go”, at least in regard to PP. They are merely dictating that they do not want their tax dollars to fund an organization that provides abortions. No one on the right is forcing PP to close. They have had over $1 billion in revenue each year for the last 3 years running. They do not need tax dollars to stay afloat, and THAT is what the so-called ‘far right’ are against. As are many on the center-right, and even *gasp* on the left.
Ex-GOP,
The government is not telling people where they can and can’t go with their own money. It’s MY money they’re spending. When the government spends our tax dollars, you’d better believe they can control where it goes, like it or not. Most of the time I don’t like it. In this case, I do.
HMOs tell patients where they can and can’t go to be covered. It’s perfectly reasonable for states to do the same with Medicaid recipients.
Live Action is brilliant.
Sylvia- my tax dollars go to pay for an incredibly expensive illegal war. Do you think I like that? No.
I am 100% ok with my tax dollars going to Planned Parenthood and to funding abortion. And so are a lot of other tax payers.
Pro-lifers are NOT the only people who pay taxes
Jane, no one was implying that pro-lifers are the only ones who pay taxes. If you want your money to go to planned parenthood, you should be allowed to give your money to them. No one would be stopping you from doing that if PP was defunded. No one is stopping anyone from giving money to organizations they wish to give money to. But they are forcing people who don’t want to give their money to PP to give money to them.
Jane,
Thanks for offering something so substantive! Had no idea you were o.k. with tax money going to PP.
Here’s a basic civics lesson – pro-lifers are not the only people who pay taxes, but we are the people who voted representatives into office. They either have to spend tax money in a way that the majority agree with, or get voted out of office.
In Indiana, (and seven other states and counting!) your side lost. Make your case and vote pro-lifers out of office if you can, but stating that we have to support our tax dollars going to something we find repugnant is ridiculous.
It’s especially ridiculous when there is proof that women are going to be able to get non-abortive health care elsewhere.
That’s good logic! So just accept whatever Obama says and does during this term, and his next one, because guess what? He represents the majority of american voters! Your side lost!!
Abortion IS reproductive health care for women, by the way.
Yes, Jane! You’ve got it! If Obama can get the other elected representatives to vote his way as well, we either accept the laws or work to vote the officials out of office.
I’m so proud of you for learning!
Ex-GOP Voter says:
June 29, 2011 at 8:22 am
“Planned Parenthood…no strong feelings either way on their funding”
Wow EGV, did you really mean that? Are you really that blind, ignorant and passive? I don’t mean that in a demeaning or belittling way. I’m just trying to understand your lack of passion. As a man, you don’t feel any compulsion to defend or protect innocent vulnerable children or their mothers?
Are you trying to make Rev. 3.15-16 your life passage?
Why don’t you care?
Oh believe me, people are so horrified with what the republicans have done this term, that you’ll all be crying big fat tears of regret in 2012
Are they really horrified though, Jane? I mean honestly when you leave your pro-choice bubble? (I don’t mean that disrespectfully. I certainly have a pro-life bubble.)
When I leave my safe pro-life bubble and go into my other life as a public elementary school teacher (90 + % women) I don’t hear women complaining.
I’m being honest, I don’t hear “hurray!” either. But I honestly don’t think the majority of women feel their rights are being trampled.
Where is your non-pro-choice bubble and what do you hear? Honestly?
They have one goal & one purpose. They want to kill as many babies as they can while screaming at me that I “hate women”. Ludicrous! If I hate women, THEY HATE INFANT HUMANS (excepting of course for the blood money they can get for killing them in utero). Look folks if there are 800 clinics in the state that get MEDICAID funds for care of indigent patients & only 28 are Planned PeopleKILLERS….well you do the math.
Remember all the “fear-mongering” accusations that rose and rose from the left while the conservatives where warning that Obama’s policies where going to be as destructive as they have been? Remember when predictions of 9+ % unemployment and doctors leaving their offices in droves as a result of Obamacare was “hate speech” and “racist”? And here it is, reality, everything we said would happen is happening and the left just harrumphs and mumbles to itself about Bush and his “illegal even though congress approved it” war, and ignores Obamas current ACTUALLY ILLEGAL not voted for war in Lybia.
Well I want to call attention to all this “fear-mongering” the left, PP, and Obama admin. are doing right now trying to convince and terrify poor lower-income women into believing that the big evil right is trying to take away their healthcare (while doing that themselves by holding it hostage for abortion) and have them “die quickly” by simply cutting UNNECESSARY spending from the over-bloated redundant and flamboyant red ink budget. Everyone of these women can go down the street from PP to their own PCP or FREE health clinic and get ACTUAL healthcare as they always have. PP’s own numbers prove women only go there for elective ABORTIONS which are NEVER medically necessary. Even if PP just vanished off the face of the Earth, those free clinics and medicaid docs (until Obamacare is fully implemented anyway) will still be there as they always have been.
You want to tout the “Don’t like abortion? Don’t get one!” line? Then stop trying to force me to pay for 3500+abortions everyday! PP makes over a billion bucks in PROFIT a year! Our country is so deep in the red it’ll be a miracle if our grand-kids can get out of it! We don’t need to pour money we don’t have into a company that doesn’t need it, which itself is redundant to services we’re already paying for elsewhere. I’m sure there are enough “Jane”s out there that “Stand by Planned Parenthood” who would be willing out the goodness of their “kill all human weeds and useless eaters” hearts to donate to their pet cause abortion to keep the PP execs on their private jets and Cecile in her condo.
Hmm, as a Hoosier I need to get on the ball & blog on this. But I disgress.
Anyways, these PP supporters are being alarmists. It’s not like all of a sudden women won’t able to receive health services, even low-income women. Planned Parenthood isn’t the only provider of health services, even low-cost health services. Many of the communities have non-profit, federally qualified community health centers, which take Medicaid, Medicare, and private insurance, as well as offer a sliding fee scale for those without insurance, which not only provide family planning services (minus abortion), but also often provide a broader range of medical/dental care and social services. One such example, is BMH Open Door Health Clinics, which has locations in Muncie, Anderson, Richmond, Marion, & Kokomo. In addition, there are private care providers which accept medicaid and/or provide services on a sliding fee scale. Also, many hospitals/health care systems offer a patient assistance program or managed care program for the uninsured in which the cost of services are discounted on a sliding-fee scale based on their income and household size (you do not have to be on Medicaid to qualify), and not only applies to inpatient services, but also applies to community services affiliated with the hospital or health care system, including primary care and family planning centers, pharmacies, mental health counseling, etc. One example is Wishard Health Advantage.
Why not instead put our energy & support towards these clinics and programs which provide these necessary services, but which do not loudly politically lobby nor provides abortion services.
Helena/Sylvia –
No, I get you 100%. I’m just saying that myself, as a supporter of health care reform in America who’s followed the last few years of debate – I find this to be an interesting, little subtle shift in the right that I believe opens the door for long term health care success.
If we’re willing to say that we’ll withhold funds from facilities that don’t meet a standard we like, or defund things we don’t like – we’ve moved passed the previous talk of “these decisions are between me and my doctor”. More and more Americans will be on plans subsidized by the US government – so in regards to medications, prescriptions, and steering people to certain coverages, I think this whole episode with planned parenthood shows that even the far right is okay the government stepping in and regulating health care.
For a lot of folks, it is a moral issue in regards to funding organizations like planned parenthood. To other folks, it is a moral injustice that we spend money poorly in health care (like digital mammograms for certain people in the population). If we can agree that at times, the government should regulate health care choices, that is a win in regards to reform.
Ed- my point is, is it a pro-life win if a women doesn’t go to a planned parenthood for an abortion, but instead goes to another clinic? Are we happier in that situation?
Abortion IS reproductive health care for women, by the way – pregnacncy is the epitome of reproductive health, darling. You want to stop that health, you in fact are too healthy for you liking. What you want is to be infertile which is a disfunction, pregnancy however is not. You are healthy and in fact many doctors consider menstration (the ability to get pregnant) a good sign of health or healing (like in anorexia or cancer treatment). The reproductive part I get, but the health is misused on your part to imply that pregnancy is a disease (the goal of that implication is to claim that the fetus is a tumor and can and should be killed). Ovulation and fetrilization are all healthy normal things that healthy female bodies do. You are upset that you are too healthy and that your body has worked as it was naturally and biologically designed to do and it has done what you did not want it to. So at this point we can conclude that abortion is not about health but about want (as is always the case).
@Ex-GOP Voter – I see what you are saying here. It is very interesting when you see the GOP and Dems flip on an issue. But here is the rub on the abortion issue from what I can tell from the GOP’s platform – it is one person’s rights against another’s liberties (the woman has the liberty/freedom for abortion and the unborn the right to life). So I am not sure if the flip in the ideology is the issue (freedom from government) but the priorities of the government and not about the size of the government. In order for the government to assure liberty and the pursuit of happiness you must ensure life first. The “you are against big governement “is usually how the pro-choice Dems frame it in an attempt to get the GOP to capitualte to their side. But as you mentioned it does point out some differences (it can be framed like this but I don’t believe it to be genuine) and that makes you rethink the previous assumptions about each’s ideology when you work them out. It also makes you think why this issue?
You also state that the GOP involvement in the regulations of healthcare is a good thing. Again I don’t think this is how the GOP sees it - they are protecting fundamental right to life which trumps someones liberty (as is the case with rights, when you give someone a right it takes away everyone else’s liberty). You see the subtle shift of the right as an opportunity for the Dems to capatilize on gains in healthcare regulation – if I get you correctly? I can see this manuever working in some ways but I don’t think that is the GOP’s intent here with abortion and that means that the Dems would have to back off of abortion and I don’t think that will be the case either. Perhaps this is why we have had the Mexican Stand-offs that we have had over PP and the military’s pay in the budget and the witholding medicaid funds for Indiana for refusing to give money to PP.
pregnancy is the epitome of reproductive health, darling. You want to stop that health, you in fact are too healthy for you liking. What you want is to be infertile which is a disfunction, pregnancy however is not. You are healthy and in fact many doctors consider menstration (the ability to get pregnant) a good sign of health or healing (like in anorexia or cancer treatment). The reproductive part I get, but the health is misused on your part to imply that pregnancy is a disease (the goal of that implication is to claim that the fetus is a tumor and can and should be killed). Ovulation and fetrilization are all healthy normal things that healthy female bodies do. You are upset that you are too healthy and that your body has worked as it was naturally and biologically designed to do and it has done what you did not want it to. So at this point we can conclude that abortion is not about health but about want (as is always the case).
*like*
Hmm. Last I checked, Jane, making war is the job of the federal government.
To my knowledge, funding PP is not.
The latter may be an optional matter for the federal government, but the former is mandated of it.
The federal government might do a lousy job choosing and prosecuting wars — but no on argues that that is not its job. It is — constitutionally.
Abortion — not so much.
everybody, make a pro life youtube facebook twitter and or myyearbook page and help save lots of babies
@Jane: In addition to rasqual‘s excellent points, there is also the fact that wars have a public benefit. The soldier fights to protect your right to complain that we are having a war. Whether you approves of any particular war or not, they are engaged in on behalf of the entire public, not just the portion that does approve. Or doesn’t, but tolerates it. Or any other variation on “doesn’t oppose.”
But pro-aborts have championed their cause for decades under the slogans “My body, my choice!” and “Don’t like abortion? Don’t have one!” Which means, by your own logic, abortion has no public benefit at all. It is a private activity engaged in by private persons for private reasons that the public has no right to be involved in. Which means those who participate have no right whatsoever to public funding for it.
Or, put another way, I don’t like abortions and I don’t want to pay for yours. If it’s your body, your choice, then it’s your money, your responsibility.
“But pro-aborts have championed their cause for decades under the slogans “My body, my choice!” and “Don’t like abortion? Don’t have one!” Which means, by your own logic, abortion has no public benefit at all. It is a private activity engaged in by private persons for private reasons that the public has no right to be involved in. Which means those who participate have no right whatsoever to public funding for it.”
This is a DEVASTATING point.
Alice thanks for the excellent post.
Terrific review! This is exactly the type of blog post that needs to be shared around the internet. Sad on the Yahoo for not positioning this article higher!