Court Gets Brief in Planned Parenthood $180 Million Birth Control Fraud Case
by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
September 28, 2009
Sacramento, CA (LifeNews.com) — The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit received legal papers from the American Center for Law and Justice today. They concern a case in which a former vice president of a Planned Parenthood abortion business affiliate in California has accused it of defrauding the state.
P. Victor Gonzalez says the abortion business fired him because he raised concerns about illegal practices of overcharging the state.
The former Planned Parenthood official filed a lawsuit in March 2008 against affiliates in California saying they overcharged the state hundreds of millions of dollars on birth control.
In January, a federal district court judge dismissed the case and Gonzalez filed an appeal. Now, the ACLJ, a pro-life legal group, filed a brief with the appeals court representing the federal whistleblower
The papers note that the federal False Claims Act (FCA) forbids government contractors from submitting “false or fraudulent” claims for payment. The FCA also authorizes private individuals to bring suit against the offenders to recover the fraudulently obtained funds.
“Nationally, Planned Parenthood is a billion-dollar operation. Now, it looks like they’ve been soaking the taxpayers even beyond the legal limits,” said Jay Sekulow, ACLJ Chief Counsel. “The False Claims Act provides an important weapon in rectifying illegal runs on taxpayer dollars.”
Gonzalez alleges that Planned Parenthood affiliates in California illegally marked up the supposed cost of various birth control drugs when seeking government reimbursement, resulting in tens of millions of dollars of overbilling – at taxpayer expense.
Gonzalez says his own internal audit estimates that Planned Parenthood overcharged California taxpayers for purchasing birth control by at least $180 million.
He was the vice president of finance and administration for Planned Parenthood of Los Angles and, according to a Los Angeles Times report, the overbilling began in the late 1990s.
While other public health facilities and private facilities charged the state between $8 and $9 for a cycle of birth control pills, Planned Parenthood charged almost $12. The Planned Parenthood charge to the California government was several times more than it paid for the drugs originally.
Gonzalez alleges that other California-based Planned Parenthood affiliates and Planned Parenthood Affiliates of California knowingly engaged in a scheme to defraud state and federal taxpayers by deliberately over-billing the Medi-Cal program.
Judge A. Howard Matz dismissed Gonzalez’s suit last October and he ruled that Gonzalez did not qualify as a whistleblower under federal law because he was not the "original source" of the data exposing the fraud. As a result, he said his court lacked jurisdiction in the suit.
According to the Los Angeles Times, Planned Parenthood overbilling occurred until state Sen. Hannah-Beth Jackson of Santa Barbara sponsored legislation allowing Planned Parenthood to charge more based on concerns the abortion business presented her that it would suffer financial problems without it.
However, altering the statute didn’t address the billing practices prior to it and a 2003 state audit found at least $5.2 million in overbilling in 2003 alone from just one of the nine California Planned Parenthood affiliates.
Medi-Cal officials first noticed the problems in 1997 and Planned Parenthood received two separate letters at that time pointing out the problems.
However, state officials now say Planned Parenthood was given conflicting information on billing practices. They say Planned Parenthood does not need to repay the millions it overcharged state taxpayers.
Still, Gonzalez wants the abortion business to be held accountable for firing him abruptly on March 9, 2004 for doing his job and pointing out that it was breaking the law.
In its legal papers, ACLJ notes a California Department of Health Services audit in 2004 found more than $5 million in egregious over-billing in two years by the San Diego/Riverside Planned Parenthood affiliate.
In the reply brief filed with the appeals court on September 25th, the ACLJ counters arguments that the Planned Parenthood affiliates made in their own brief on appeal. In particular, the ACLJ brief takes Planned Parenthood to task for “misrepresenting” the record in the case and for “improperly” trying to inject new materials into the case on appeal.
When the former PP staffer sued the PP affiliates in federal court, charging the defendants with having fraudulently overbilled the state and federal governments in the amount of tens of millions of dollars, a prominent law firm began representing the Planned Parenthood defendants at no cost.
That’s when the ACLJ intervened to help Gonzalez.
“This is a very complicated, highly technical area of the law,” noted Sekulow.
“There is no way an ordinary citizen, no matter how just the claim or how egregious the fraud, could afford to take on a prominent law firm in a complex area of the law like this. We’re very pleased that the ACLJ was available to provide the high-powered analysis a case like this calls for,” he told LifeNews.com.
The ACLJ filed its opening brief in July and explained why the appeals court should reverse the lower court’s judgment and reinstate the lawsuit.
Related web sites:
ACLJ – https://www.ACLJ.org
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