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Texas health officials sent letters Monday informing Planned Parenthood that it is being dropped as a Medicaid health provider, saying undercover videos of fetal tissue practices show that the organization does not operate in a “professionally competent, safe, legal and ethical manner.”
Planned Parenthood has 30 days to respond or be automatically severed from the program, according to the letter by the Health and Human Services inspector general.
“Earlier this year, you committed and condoned numerous acts of misconduct captured on video that reveal repeated program violations and breach the minimum standards of care required of a Medicaid enrollee,” Inspector General Stuart Bowen Jr. said in the letters.
According to Bowen, the videos indicate that Planned Parenthood doctors altered abortion procedures to procure fetal tissue in violation of federal law and Medicaid rules.
Bowen also said his office “has information suggesting that fraud,” including illegal billing practices, has been committed by a number of Planned Parenthood affiliates enrolled in the Medicaid program in Texas. The letters provide no further details.
Planned Parenthood officials have previously denied the allegations, saying the undercover videos taken by anti-abortion activists were deceptively edited and misleading.
Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast, which operates the Houston clinic where some of the videos were taken, called the move politically motivated attempt to cut access to cancer screenings and other health services.
“Tens of thousands of women are already going without care after years of policies aimed at blocking access to care at Planned Parenthood. Now, Texas politicians are using a thoroughly discredited, bogus attack against Planned Parenthood as a shameful excuse to attack Texas women’s health yet again,” the agency said in a statement.
State regulators have not responded to requests asking how much money Planned Parenthood affiliates receive from Medicaid.
The Texas Alliance for Life, which opposes abortion, said it has compiled data showing the organization receives about $2 million a year from the federal program.
Gov. Greg Abbott praised the move.
“Texas has stepped forward and shown its unyielding commitment to both protecting life and providing women’s health services,” Abbott said. “The gruesome harvesting of baby body parts by Planned Parenthood will not be allowed in Texas, and the barbaric practice must be brought to an end.”
The Texas attorney general’s office also is conducting an investigation into Planned Parenthood’s fetal tissue practices. No results have been announced by the agency, which is led by Attorney General Ken Paxton, an outspoken opponent of abortion who has called Planned Parenthood’s practices “cold, calculating, almost inhuman.”
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