Evangelical women's health group owes state $1.5M

[TexasTowelie]

HOUSTON (AP) — An anti-abortion group that has come under fire for failing to fulfill its promise to provide health services to thousands of low-income Texas women owes the state more than $1.5 million for reimbursement payments that were either inflated or that the state shouldn’t have paid at all, according to state investigators.

The office of the health inspector general announced Thursday that it had uncovered “serious contractual violations” and was expanding its probe of the Heidi Group, an evangelical nonprofit that started promoting alternatives to abortion in the 1990s, the Houston Chronicle reported. It was founded by Carol Everett, an influential conservative activist in the Texas Legislature, which has passed some of the country’s toughest anti-abortion laws in recent years.

A copy of the investigation report obtained by the newspaper shows that forensic accountants found the group had paid medical providers hundreds of thousands in extra fees, had overspent on payroll and fringe benefits, and had expensed thousands of dollars in prohibited costs on things such as food, gift cards, clothing and retail membership fees.

The inquiry covered a seven-month period, from September 2017 to March 2018.

“It’s a travesty when you look at all the women who should have been receiving services and were not because of this,” said state Rep. Donna Howard. “We’re talking about women who don’t have means to afford health care like many of us do.”

Read more: https://www.gainesvilleregister.com/texas/news/texas-evangelical-women-s-health-group-owes-state-m/article_81aa78be-0281-11ea-95ac-7f42ca763182.html

[bucolic_frolic]

1. There are many mainstream religious hospitals

as well as alt religious groups that dabble in clinics or healthcare. They are after the money, the cash flow, that heath care provides.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

2. Wait, ... a christian gang lied & stole the money? In a conspiracy? No christian stood up?

It's a gang, a criminal gang. Multiple christians would have known of this and none among them stopped it or went to the police.

Do they fear a wrathful righteous god or not?

Don't they always say that without christian religion people will commit crimes because they have no moral compass?

[Lonestarblue]

3. Groups like this need to be illegal.

They benefitted when the stupid Texas legislature withdrew funding for real women’s healthcare clinics in an effort to shut down Planned Parenthood. The result was the closing of 81 clinics, many of them the only healthcare provider in rural areas and most of whom did not even perform abortions. Another result was increased maternal death rates, but that’s what you get when rabid so-called Christians make medical decisions in total ignorance. Evangelical crisis pregnancy “clinics” that have no licensed doctors and perform only misleading counseling that abortions cause cancer need to be shut down.