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Washington D.C., Jan 7, 2017 / 04:21 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Audits showing Planned Parenthood’s alleged misuse of federal funds are further proof that the organization should be barred from receiving federal money, pro-life advocates say.“The extent of waste and abuse in the nation’s family planning programs, and specifically in those operated by Planned Parenthood, is beyond disturbing,” Charlotte Lozier Institute president Chuck Donovan stated upon the release of a joint report by the institute and the legal group Alliance Defending Freedom on abortion clinics overbilling taxpayer-funded health programs.“Congress should do what the House of Representatives has twice voted to do: end taxpayer funding to Planned Parenthood, the nation’s most profitable abortionist, once and for all,” Alliance Defending Freedom senior counsel Steven H. Aden stated.The report, titled “Profit. No Matter What,” is based on dozens of external audits and...
Washington D.C., Jan 7, 2017 / 04:21 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Audits showing Planned Parenthood’s alleged misuse of federal funds are further proof that the organization should be barred from receiving federal money, pro-life advocates say.
“The extent of waste and abuse in the nation’s family planning programs, and specifically in those operated by Planned Parenthood, is beyond disturbing,” Charlotte Lozier Institute president Chuck Donovan stated upon the release of a joint report by the institute and the legal group Alliance Defending Freedom on abortion clinics overbilling taxpayer-funded health programs.
“Congress should do what the House of Representatives has twice voted to do: end taxpayer funding to Planned Parenthood, the nation’s most profitable abortionist, once and for all,” Alliance Defending Freedom senior counsel Steven H. Aden stated.
The report, titled “Profit. No Matter What,” is based on dozens of external audits and reviews of Planned Parenthood affiliates. It was authored by Catherine Glenn Foster, a senior fellow in legal policy at the Charlotte Lozier Institute, the research arm of the pro-life group Susan B. Anthony List.
It was released on Wednesday, the same day that the House Select Investigative Panel on Infant Lives released its over 400-page final report on abuses and possible lawbreaking by abortion clinics, universities, and tissue procurement companies in the fetal tissue trade.
Planned Parenthood has a spotty track record, Donovan said, pointing to previous reports on the organization’s alleged abuses.
“This report joins earlier findings on issues of human trafficking, failure to report statutory rape, alleged violations of fetal organ trafficking laws, and other profound concerns that reinforce the need for Congress to reallocate funds to agencies that respect human life and put women first,” Donovan said of Wednesday’s report.
The CLI-ADF report is the fifth annual report by the groups on audits of taxpayer funding of Planned Parenthood and other “family planning” clinics. The latest report includes new federal and state audits of family programs and clinics.
The “research strongly suggests that Planned Parenthood and its affiliates are engaged in a pattern of practices designed to maximize their bottom-line revenues through billings to complex, well-funded federal and state programs that are understaffed and rely on the integrity of the provider for program compliance,” the report noted.
Overall, “nearly all” of 51 audits of Planned Parenthood affiliates in 12 states showed that affiliates were overbilling Medicaid and other publicly-funded health programs, costing taxpayers millions. “Title XIX-Medicaid overpayments” at these affiliates amounted to over $8.5 million.
And the waste and fraud may be much greater than that amount, the report claimed:
“The weight of evidence indicates that waste by Planned Parenthood affiliates may be widespread, and suggests that such policies may be the result of, at a minimum, a policy of benign neglect over billing practices organization-wide by Planned Parenthood Federation of America’s headquarters in New York City.”
Abortion clinics in some cases will have abortion-related services – or abortions themselves – paid for by Medicaid or state family planning programs. The Hyde Amendment prohibits federal Medicaid dollars from funding abortions, except in cases of rape, incest, or when the life of the mother is at stake.
Clinics will do this by utilizing “fragmentation” or “unbundling” billing to have abortion-related services like counseling or a pre-abortion examination paid for with public dollars, the report found.
Even abortions themselves may be billed to Medicaid. “In New York alone during one four-year audit period, it appeared that hundreds of thousands of abortion-related claims were billed unlawfully to Medicaid,” the report noted.
One Nebraska audit found a Planned Parenthood clinic spending federal funds on abortion-related expenses, and physician fees for a doctor who only performed abortions. Over $3,500 in taxpayer funds were used for abortion services there.
Other instances of abuse by clinics included giving prescription drugs to clients without a physician’s authorization, “billing for services that were not actually rendered,” “duplicate billing,” and “failing to pay the bills for which an affiliate had already been reimbursed with taxpayer funds.”
In California alone, one 2004 audit found that Planned Parenthood of San Diego and Riverside Counties had overbilled contraceptive and Plan B products by $5.2 million.
“Three federal audits specifically identify Planned Parenthood – and only Planned Parenthood – as the problem in state family planning program overbilling,” the report noted.
What should be done about Planned Parenthood?
The organization must be defunded of taxpayer dollars, CLI and ADF both insisted. Also investigations of the organization should examine allegations of clinics “double-dipping” by receiving funds or payments from clients or organizations and still billing Medicaid for those services provided.
Those allegations were made in a previous ADF report on Planned Parenthood and Susan G. Komen Foundation grants.
Back in August of 2016, the U.S. Government Accountability Office responded to requests by members of Congress and opened an investigation into Planned Parenthood’s use of taxpayer funds. A previous GAO investigation found that from 2010-12, Planned Parenthood Federation of America and its affiliates received over $1.5 billion in taxpayer dollars from federal and state funds.
Planned Parenthood is the nation’s largest abortion provider, with over 300,000 abortions performed annually.
House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.) announced Thursday that in budget reconciliation legislation that is under consideration, taxpayer funding of Planned Parenthood would be redirected to community health centers that do not provide abortions.
President-Elect Donald Trump made the defunding of Planned Parenthood one of his promises to pro-life voters on the campaign trail in 2016.
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Steubenville, Ohio, Jan 7, 2017 / 10:56 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Father Michael Scanlan, TOR, the former president and chancellor of Franciscan University of Steubenville, passed away on the morning of Jan. 7, after an extended illness, at age 85.The university’s current president, Father Sean O. Sheridan, said in a statement that Fr. Scanlan was “rightfully credited with revitalizing the Catholic and Franciscan mission of the University.” “During his tenure as president from 1974-2000, his ideas, guided by the Holy Spirit, turned things around at the struggling College of Steubenville and led to its prominence as Franciscan University of Steubenville,” he said.“Father Mike wisely surrounded himself with friars and dedicated people who helped him to carry out the Franciscan University mission. He also spent time with the students, listened to their concerns, and prayed how he might help them. He emphasized the importance of academics, particularl...
Steubenville, Ohio, Jan 7, 2017 / 10:56 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Father Michael Scanlan, TOR, the former president and chancellor of Franciscan University of Steubenville, passed away on the morning of Jan. 7, after an extended illness, at age 85.
The university’s current president, Father Sean O. Sheridan, said in a statement that Fr. Scanlan was “rightfully credited with revitalizing the Catholic and Franciscan mission of the University.”
“During his tenure as president from 1974-2000, his ideas, guided by the Holy Spirit, turned things around at the struggling College of Steubenville and led to its prominence as Franciscan University of Steubenville,” he said.
“Father Mike wisely surrounded himself with friars and dedicated people who helped him to carry out the Franciscan University mission. He also spent time with the students, listened to their concerns, and prayed how he might help them. He emphasized the importance of academics, particularly theology – now, by far our largest major – and stressed the role of campus ministry and student life in the daily lives of the students.”
Born Vincent Michael Scanlan in 1931 in Cedarhurst, Long Island, New York, Fr. Scanlan would go on to graduate from Harvard Law School and serving as Staff Judge Advocate in the U.S. Air Force before entering the Franciscan Third Order Regular. He made his first profession of Franciscan vows in 1959 and was ordained to the priesthood in 1964.
After being named acting dean of the College of Steubenville, he eventually became president of the college in 1974, a role in which he served until 2000.
“Over the next 26 years, he transformed the College into Franciscan University of Steubenville and gained for it a worldwide reputation for both excellence in academics and its passionate Catholic faith environment,” the university said in a statement.
“His success helped spark a restoration of authentic Catholic education in the United States and beyond, with many colleges and universities renewing their Catholic identity and new schools imitating his emphasis on Catholic Church teaching.”
Fr. Scanlan is widely credited with creating the Catholic atmosphere present at the campus today, establishing faith households for students, and developing new academic programs, particularly emphasizing the theology program, which has become the largest undergraduate Theology Program at any U.S. Catholic university.
He also started the university’s study abroad program in Austria, established a pre-seminary program at the campus, and helped the university pay off its entire debt and double its enrollment.
In 1989, Franciscan University, under the leadership of Fr. Scanlan, became the first U.S. Catholic college or university whose theology faculty and priests publicly took the Oath of Fidelity to the teaching authority of the Church, a practice that continues to this day.
Fr. Scanlan was also known as a pro-life leader, as well as an early leader in the Catholic charismatic renewal movement, and wrote 16 books and booklets. He hosted Franciscan University Presents for 18 years on EWTN and started the university’s summer youth conference series, which would grow to nationwide impact.
From 2000-2011, Fr. Scanlan was chancellor of the university, before retiring to the Third Order Regular Sacred Heart Province’s motherhouse in Loretto, Pennsylvania.
When asked in a December 2013 interview what he considered his greatest accomplishment, Father Scanlan said, “Living the life faithfully, living the [Franciscan] rule, being a Franciscan, being able to be sent wherever God wants you and serve his people. This is what is most important.”
Tributes remembering the lasting impact of Fr. Scanlan poured in after his death.
“He made the name of a small, relatively unknown, Franciscan University of the United States resound throughout the entire Catholic Church,” said Father Raniero Cantalamessa, OFM, Cap., Preacher to the Papal Household
“Father Michael Scanlan, TOR, was a dynamo of evangelical energy who knew that the renewal of Catholic higher education was a critical component of the New Evangelization,” said George Weigel, Distinguished Senior Fellow and William E. Simon Chair in Catholic Studies at the Ethics and Public Policy Center.
“His personal witness, exuberant manner of life, and ability to communicate the Gospel in a joyful way made major contributions, not only to Franciscan University, but to the entire Catholic Church in the United States—indeed, to the World Church.”
Dr. Scott Hahn, noted Professor of Biblical Theology and the New Evangelization at Steubenville, recalled Fr. Scanlan’s spiritual fatherhood.
“I experienced his fatherhood in many ways. He baptized our three youngest sons, and two of them are now discerning priesthood. I don’t think that’s coincidental,” Hahn reflected. “The day I met him he showed such love to my wife, Kimberly, who was not Catholic. She had been suffering after a miscarriage. He prayed over her – and soon we conceived again – and a short while later, Kimberly became Catholic.”
Father Mitch Pacwa, SJ, host of EWTN Live, recalled attending one of the Steubenville summer conference shortly after being ordained.
“This was a great witness to a young priest such as I,” he said, noting that he would later go on to become friends with Fr. Scanlan.
One time, he recalled, Fr. Scanlan “shared some of the difficulties, challenges, and pain of taking his role as a leader. Then he pulled out a photograph of a severely deformed young man that he knew, saying, ‘Compared to him, I don't have any real problems.’”
“This indicated the mature Christian approach to life that made it possible for him to maintain a healthy perspective on life's problems,” Fr. Pacwa said. “I will never forget that.”
