Judge: Planned Parenthood $1.8B Medicaid Fraud Claims Case Must Go to Trial
Planned Parenthood must face trial in a $1.8 billion lawsuit filed by the state of Texas accusing the abortion giant of defrauding the state's Medicaid health insurance program, a federal judge has ruled.
As CBN News reported, Texas wants Planned Parenthood to give back millions of dollars in Medicaid reimbursements.
The state claims the abortion organization obtained funds and failed to repay them after Texas terminated the organization as a provider under its Medicaid insurance programs for low-income people.
U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk in Amarillo did not rule on the case but determined late last month that the case should go to trial in April.
According to Reuters, now-sealed court documents show the judge ruled against Planned Parenthood on a key legal issue, saying the organization is obligated to return some funds to Texas and Louisiana, which did not join the case.
Kacsmaryk did not say how much money Planned Parenthood would be required to repay, nor did he rule on whether the company intentionally violated the law.
Kacsmaryk is the same judge who, in April, suspended the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's year-2000 approval of the abortion pill drug mifepristone, as CBN News previously reported.
The U.S. Supreme Court temporarily allowed the abortion pill to remain on the market.
At issue in the current case is money Planned Parenthood received before Texas officially removed the organization from the state's Medicaid program in 2021. Texas had begun trying to oust Planned Parenthood four years earlier after the Center for Medical Progress, a pro-life investigative group, released a series of undercover videos in 2015.
***Please sign up for CBN Newsletters and download the CBN News app to ensure you keep receiving the latest news from a distinctly Christian perspective.***
Texas is seeking repayment for services billed during that time.
Planned Parenthood President and CEO Alexis McGill Johnson referred to the case as "outrageous."
"Not satisfied with the overturning of Roe v. Wade, politicians are targeting ALL sexual & reproductive health care. Planned Parenthood will be ready at trial — Texans' access to care is on the line," she wrote on X.
A statement released from the abortion giant reads, "This is a baseless case. The Texas Planned Parenthood affiliates did not commit Medicaid fraud and followed the law, period... The plaintiffs' only goal in this case is to achieve their decades-long goal of shutting down Planned Parenthood to advance a political agenda. We will never back down, and we look forward to winning this case at trial."
Texas' Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton said last year it was "unthinkable that Planned Parenthood would continue to take advantage of funding knowing they were not entitled to keep it."
