Could Trump admin’s Medicaid audit lead to Planned Parenthood defunding?

Dr. Mehmet Oz, the administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid, announced a 50-state audit of the health insurance program. Medicaid is a federal program, providing health coverage for the poor and disabled, but is largely administered at the state level.

The audit comes against the backdrop of widespread accusations – and some criminal charges – that Medicaid providers were cheating taxpayers by over-billing for patients or fraudulently submitting claims. Independent journalist Nick Shirley, for example, has helped shed the light on potential fraud in both the Medicaid and Medicare health insurance programs.

But Dr. Oz’s request for a comprehensive fraud-fighting strategy from each state is raising questions about whether Planned Parenthood and its affiliates could face needed scrutiny. Yet despite these questions, the abortion vendor’s temporary defunding is set to expire this July, allowing it to regain access to hundreds of millions of dollars.

“Planned Parenthood, which presents itself as a health care provider while reporting various decreasing legitimate health services year after year, is a large recipient of taxpayer dollars via Medicaid and other funds,” Carole Novielli, a researcher with Live Action, pointed out in a recent piece.

She reported further:

Planned Parenthood has been accused multiple times of Medicaid fraud, and other abuses, yet it continues to be funded. In 2022, the State of Texas filed a lawsuit against “Planned Parenthood Federation of America and several Planned Parenthood locations in Texas, seeking recovery of $10 million in payments made by the Texas Medicaid program.”

Planned Parenthood has been embroiled in additional controversies, including accusations of abuse, scandal, fraud, racism, pregnancy discrimination, privacy breaches and repeatedly failing to report child sexual abuse – all which should disqualify them from receiving any state of federal dollars.

A 2017 Charlotte Lozier report also “identified waste, abuse, and potential fraud” at a handful of locations, Novielli wrote.

She is not the first person to praise the prospect of using potential fraud as a way of defunding Planned Parenthood.

Students for Life Action and more than 50 pro-life leaders made a similar argument to the Trump administration in a letter last October.

The letter “called on President Trump to direct his administration to debar Planned Parenthood, the nation’s number one abortion vendor and distributor of wrong-sex hormones.”

Debarment refers to making an entity ineligible to receive government funding or contracts, according to the General Services Administration.

Among the potential areas for concern are Planned Parenthood’s roles in the trafficking of baby body parts and its “unlawful participation” in the Paycheck Protection Program.

“They are unqualified to work for the American taxpayer,” Kristan Hawkins, president of Students for Life Action, said last year.

“Given the many complaints against them, the debarment process will allow the federal government to officially find them unqualified and therefore ineligible to participate in any federal programs or to receive any federal funds,” she said.

President Donald Trump, to his credit, has effectively used the levers of government to crack down on the immoral and unscientific mutilation of gender-confused children. He has used federal pressure to get hospitals to stop committing the procedures and is using consumer safety laws to go after companies that profit from so-called “gender transitions.”

He could wield political power in the same way to save preborn babies from being killed in the womb – and debarring Planned Parenthood would be a good start.