Give Senator Don Benton this: He is an asshole. No, give him this: He was able to get a non-story into the news. Anyway start with his Christmas Eve press release
Senator Don Benton of Vancouver said he wants an audit of Planned Parenthood following accusations of fraudulent Medicaid billing.
Oh gosh. That sounds serious. “Accusations” must be a government office. What it couldn’t be — because it would be embarrassing even to the credibility challenged GOP — is a random group with the fake grassrootsiest name in the history of organizations.
He called for the investigation after a group called The Alliance Defending Freedom accused Planned Parenthood of over-billing Medicaid and the state of Washington at least 50,000 times, costing the state $337 million.
Oh. I’m not including Benton’s link to it here, but he links to the group, who are doing some year end fundraising. He doesn’t link to the “accusation” just to their front page fundraising page.* I just looked around the page, but this ostensible millions of dollars in fraud, this supposed bombshell, this major revelation of fraud, wasn’t easy to find. I’m sure it’s on their website, somewhere, but it wasn’t obvious to me. There is a lot of complaining about the war on Christmas, so there’s that.
So a group nobody has ever heard of makes inflammatory accusations, and they’re repeated by Senator Benton who demands an audit. This is a Senator who is so concerned with the public money that he took a make work job for his off time (Columbian link), so you know he’s serious.
Anyway, the press release ends with a link to what looks like a real news org picking it up. Jesus, your liberal media.
* Late update here: the url linked to from Bentin contains this, “year-end-gift” so let’s say I’m less sure it was supposed to be the front page. Maybe that was an accident. I’d initially thought that I was just redirected, like when you go to like 80% of political web pages for the first time. I assume whatever staffer would normally do their web stuff isn’t in on Christmas Eve, so maybe it was an honest mistake, but mistake or not it feels like a misuse of public funds to link to that from the GOP Caucus page.
Of course, the real, and easily provable Medicaid frauds being committed as a part of doing everyday “normal” business by Hospitals and drop-in clinics owned by companies like Coca-Cola, the Catholic Church and Goldman-Sachs are to be totally ignored because they are biblically acceptable to the free marketeer pirate class that own every State legislature in the country.
Theft is perfectly acceptable as long as the right palms get greased and you own the lawmakers outright. There is no legislation happening anywhere in the country without some for-profit corporate entity approving of it. The whole system is based on corruption.
Is the opposite of Planned Parenthood “Unplanned Parenthood?” The way people are often having kids they can’t afford makes me think that “Unplanned Parenthood” really exists!
“The way people are often having kids they can’t afford makes me think that “Unplanned Parenthood” really exists!”
Actually, unplanned parenthood has been pretty much the way of it for our species for a very long time. It was pretty much an American tradition.
If only it were just the shiftless, lazy poor of right-wing imagination who can’t afford familes anymore. Alas, it’s hard working 21st Century Americans who can’t afford families, planned or unplanned, and that’s an issue. For some anyway.
Looking over the ADF site, they are a group concerned with abortion and prayer (they even waded into the Duck Dynasty flap). The accusation that Benton is referring to is a whistleblower lawsuit that ADF is backing that alleges that Planned Parenthood is massively bilking the state over abortion procedures and Plan B pills.
My guess is that the suit was filed because PP says that abortion services constitute only 3% of their business, yet they billed for over $300m in services. And that there is some kind of underhanded fraud going on, like billing for other things when conservatives think that PP is an abortion machine. This seems like not a suit over Medicare fraud, but one designed to harass an organization providing services they don’t like.
Where is the ADF when it comes to all those TV commercials advertising free scooters and walk-in tubs to every senior citizen who wants one?
Where is the ADF when it comes to all those TV commercials advertising free scooters and walk-in tubs to every senior citizen who wants one?
Free scooters!!! I want one!!!
From 5,
Yeah, I understand you can get subsidized free golf cart if you want. It’s electric, so there’s a subsidy to support them. John Stossel was showing his free golf cart on his show recently.
From 4,
I never could understand the big deal about abortion. I couldn’t care less if someone wants to get an abortion.
@7 The squawk is that some people who oppose abortions don’t want their taxes paying for abortions. This cuts the other way, of course — some of us don’t want our taxes paying for their wars. But ideological or religious objections don’t get you out of paying taxes for things you disagree with.
Yeah, we can’t afford the empire any longer.
Mass Shooting Of The Day (TM)
A disgruntled ex-husband shot his in-laws, his ex-wife, a former boss and his wife, and then himself. Body count: 4 dead (including the shooter), 3 wounded (2 critical).
http://www.aol.com/article/201.....d=webmail1
Roger Rabbit Commentary: What the hell, a few innocent lives a day isn’t too high a price to pay for our gun freedoms, is it? Umm, is it? Ahhh, ummm, this doesn’t add up …
@ 10 RR
It is just another hazard of living in a free society. Whats the occasional elementary school massacre or mass restaurant shooting when compared to the freedom to own pretty much any weapon one wants? The “Conservatives” consider 11,000 murders with firearms occurring every year to be a perfectly acceptable statistic. It’s just a shrug to them.