Thread: NRA defends itself after corporations pull away

NRA defends itself after corporations pull away

By Amy Lieu | Fox News

The National Rifle Association defended itself in no uncertain terms Saturday after numerous companies sought to cut ties with the gun lobby following the nation's latest mass shooting.

“Let it be absolutely clear,” the organization said in a statement. “The loss of a discount will neither scare nor distract one single NRA member from our mission to stand and defend the individual freedoms that have always made America the greatest nation in the world.”

The statement came two days after Wayne LaPierre, the NRA’s executive vice president, delivered a fiery speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Maryland.




The NRA, which represents about 5 million members, has faced public outcry following a mass shooting Feb. 14 in Parkland, Fla., that killed 17 people. That outcry has mostly taken the form of calls for gun control legislation and for boycotts of companies that partner with the NRA on discount offers and other consumer inducements.

On Saturday, United and Delta Airlines joined the list of companies separating themselves from the gun group. Previous companies to do so include MetLife, Symantec and rental car companies Hertz, Budget, Avis and Enterprise.

Those moves prompted Saturday's response from the NRA, which asserted that those corporations had “decided to punish NRA membership in a shameful display of political and civic cowardice.”

The NRA's statement argued that other factors besides gun ownership were to blame for events like the Parkland massacre.

“The law-abiding members of the NRA had nothing at all to do with the failure of that school’s security preparedness, the failure of America’s mental health system, the failure of the National Instant Check System or the cruel failures of both federal and local law enforcement,” its statement said.

However, the Washington Post reported that the NRA fought the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act, which mandated federal background checks on firearm purchasers, suing the federal government once the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) was up and running. The NRA had argued that the entire law, including the NICS provision, be struck down as unconstitutional, the report said.




NRA defends itself after corporations pull away

In the CNN Townhall fiasco, Sen Cruz was confronted by a student asking if he would stop accepting contributions from the NRA. His answer should have been "NO!"

I do not agree with everything the NRA advocates, like being opposed to background checks, banning assault type weapons from civilian use/possession, age limits on purchasing weapons, etc. But overall I still support most of what they advocate. This is like my agreement with any of the political parties, religious groups or any organization. There is no one I agree with 100%. But unless they do something I consider specifically wrong, such as Planned Parenthood using taxpayer money to finance abortions, I can still support them.

The NRA promotes gun safety and training, which is a good thing. Sometimes I think they are misguided. But they didn't put the gun in this murder's hand. They didn't pull the trigger. So I don't condemn them.

Planned Parenthood doesn't use taxpayer money to fund abortions, that is illegal and doesn't happen. The girls and women pay for the procedures themselves and always have. Planned Parenthood only provides or arranges 22% of the abortion procedures in the United States. I've never understood why Planned Parenthood is a target of the Pro-Life movement.

Originally Posted by jtdc

In the CNN Townhall fiasco, Sen Cruz was confronted by a student asking if he would stop accepting contributions from the NRA. His answer should have been "NO!"

I do not agree with everything the NRA advocates, like being opposed to background checks, banning assault type weapons from civilian use/possession, age limits on purchasing weapons, etc. But overall I still support most of what they advocate. This is like my agreement with any of the political parties, religious groups or any organization. There is no one I agree with 100%. But unless they do something I consider specifically wrong, such as Planned Parenthood using taxpayer money to finance abortions, I can still support them.

The NRA promotes gun safety and training, which is a good thing. Sometimes I think they are misguided. But they didn't put the gun in this murder's hand. They didn't pull the trigger. So I don't condemn them.

Are you talking about Sen. Rubio or Sen. Cruz? What CNN Townhall "fiasco" did Sen. Cruz participate in recently? I think you're talking about Sen. Rubio, not Cruz.

Originally Posted by Judy

Planned Parenthood doesn't use taxpayer money to fund abortions, that is illegal and doesn't happen. The girls and women pay for the procedures themselves and always have. Planned Parenthood only provides or arranges 22% of the abortion procedures in the United States. I've never understood why Planned Parenthood is a target of the Pro-Life movement.

Not directly, but indirectly they do. Taxpayer money makes it possible for Planned Parenthood to clear up other monies to be used for abortions.

Originally Posted by MW

Not directly, but indirectly they do. Taxpayer money makes it possible for Planned Parenthood to clear up other monies to be used for abortions.

Not indirectly either. The girls and women pay for their abortions, it's not cheap either, they cost a lot of money, and the girls and women pay for them. It's really unfair and I think indecent to keep up this mantra against girls and women who pay for their procedures at their expense accusing them of somehow cheating taxpayers when they are not the ones cheating the taxpayers. The girls and women waddling down to the hospital to give birth on the taxpayer dime are the ones cheating the taxpayer.

Originally Posted by Judy

Not indirectly either. The girls and women pay for their abortions, it's not cheap either, they cost a lot of money, and the girls and women pay for them. It's really unfair and I think indecent to keep up this mantra against girls and women who pay for their procedures at their expense accusing them of somehow cheating taxpayers when they are not the ones cheating the taxpayers. The girls and women waddling down to the hospital to give birth on the taxpayer dime are the ones cheating the taxpayer.

Geez, I figured this was common knowledge. However, I will provide support to substantiate my claim.

4 Ways Planned Parenthood Has Billed Taxpayers For Elective Abortions

We have no evidence that taxpayer dollars aren’t keeping the lights on and running the water in the abortion room.



By Casey MattoxOCTOBER 14, 2015

In her testimony before Congress, Planned Parenthood CEP Cecile Richards repeatedly insisted that federal law already prohibits Planned Parenthood from using tax dollars for abortions. The Hyde Amendment does prohibit Planned Parenthood from billing federal taxpayers for any abortion except those for rape or incest, or that are necessary to save the mother’s life. These exceptions are so exceedingly rare that states will report only a handful of those Medicaid-paid abortions annually—if any at all.

But it is also undeniably true that taxpayer dollars have been and are paid to Planned Parenthood for abortions and to subsidize abortions. Since money is fungible, when Planned Parenthood is receiving over a half billion dollars annually—well over $127 million of that “excess revenue”—taxpayers are effectively freeing up other funds to pay for Planned Parenthood’s abortion business. Other than Planned Parenthood pledges, we have no evidence that taxpayer dollars aren’t keeping the lights on and running the water in the abortion room.

One important admission from Richards’ testimony is that a shocking 86 percent of Planned Parenthood’s non-government revenue stream is from abortion. That abortion revenue appears to make up a sizable part of the $765 million profit Planned Parenthood has made over the last decade. More troubling still, in several instances Planned Parenthood directly billed and bills taxpayers for elective abortions.

1. State Medicaid Abortion Funding Mandates

The Hyde Amendment does not prevent states from making taxpayers pay for elective abortions, and many states are effectively doing this through their Medicaid programs. Thus, in 17 states taxpayers are compelled to pay for most abortions. In California alone, it appears taxpayers are paying for roughly 80,000 abortions per year—in the state where StemExpress has been buying infant body parts from Planned Parenthood clinics.

Richards intentionally and carefully worded her answer to say that federal taxpayer dollars cannot be used for abortion. She failed to acknowledge that an unknown but sizable part of the $528 million Planned Parenthood received from federal and statetaxpayers last year was to reimburse it for abortions.

In fact, the largest state, California, has taken it several steps further and forced not just taxpayers but the insurance plans of churches (paid from tithe money) to pay for elective abortions. While this abortion mandate blatantly violates federal law, the Obama administration has refused to intervene.

2. Billing Federal Taxpayers for Abortions in New York

The Alliance Defending Freedom has compiled the known federal and state audits of Planned Parenthood and state family planning programs, revealing millions of dollars in waste, abuse, and potential fraud by Planned Parenthood, including a $4.3 million settlement after the Obama administration’s Department of Justice contended that Planned Parenthood had overbilled Texas’s Medicaid program. Some of these audits have demonstrated that Planned Parenthood has billed federal Medicaid for abortions.

Audits have demonstrated that Planned Parenthood has billed federal Medicaid for abortions.

New York requires its taxpayers to pay for elective abortions through Medicaid, but these abortions are still not supposed to be paid by federal taxpayer dollars because of the Hyde Amendment. But audits have revealedthat New York, and apparently Planned Parenthood specifically, was billing federal taxpayers for elective abortions.

In 2008, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of the Inspector General examined billings by family planning programs in New York. During one four-year audit period, HHS found that hundreds of thousands of abortion-related claims were billed unlawfully to Medicaid by improperly labeling them “family planning” and thus receiving the higher federal share of the reimbursement.
One 2008 federal audit looked at just a small sample of 119 Medicaid claims and found that 27 of them were abortion procedures. It also found that one unnamed provider was responsible for 25 of these, representing four different services performed in conjunction with abortions. The auditors believed that this provider billed for at least 3,900 abortions during the audit period, improperly labeling them as “family planning,” and thus federal taxpayers paid them at a 90 percent rate. While these federal audits of state family planning programs typically do not identify the providers actually submitting the false claims, the HHS inspector general did identify “especially Planned Parenthoods” specifically as simply billing almost everything as “family planning.”

3. Washington State Bills Taxpayers for Chemical Abortions

A Washington state audit of Planned Parenthood in 2007-2008 found that it had billed taxpayers for a drug used in abortion. Because the audit looked at only a small sample of Planned Parenthood’s billings, this may not have been an isolated event.

4. Billing Taxpayers for Everything But the Actual Baby Cutting

Sue Thayer worked for 17 years for Planned Parenthood in Iowa, directing two clinics. After her employment at Planned Parenthood ended in 2009 over its implementation of webcam abortions, she became a whistleblower, alleging over $26 million in fraud against U.S. and Iowa taxpayers by Planned Parenthood of the Heartland. The United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit reinstated Thayer’s case last year, saying, “we conclude that Thayer has pled sufficiently particularized facts to support her allegations that Planned Parenthood violated the FCA by filing claims for … abortion related services.”

Hospitals would unwittingly bill Medicaid for services directly related to elective abortions.

Thayer had access to computerized billing records for the Planned Parenthood affiliate. Among Thayer’s claims is that Planned Parenthood: “billed taxpayers for services and supplies rendered as part of the provision of abortions, including, without limitation, office visits, ultrasounds, Rh factor tests, lab work, general counseling, and abortion aftercare, all of which were, when provided, integral to and/or related to surgical and medical/Telemed abortion procedures and thus not properly reimbursable pursuant to the Title XIX-Medicaid Program.”

While no longer part of the case, Thayer also alleged that Planned Parenthood instructed women completing a chemical abortion at home “to report to the local hospital emergency room in case of hemorrhage or other serious side effect and to advise local hospital emergency room personnel that the client had suffered a ‘miscarriage’ and to seek Title XIX-Medicaid coverage.”

The result was that those hospitals would unwittingly bill Medicaid for services directly related to elective abortions, while Planned Parenthood would absolve itself of responsibility for the negative effects of its at-home chemical abortion protocol.

Contra the mantra of Planned Parenthood defenders, taxpayers are being required to pay for Planned Parenthood’s abortions. Our money is paying for what we’re seeing on those videos. Planned Parenthood’s abortion business is our business.

http://thefederalist.com/2015/10/14/4-ways-planned-parenthood-has-billed-taxpayers-for-elective-abortions/

There, now you can consider yourself better informed. Using standard pro-abortion activist talking points just aren't going to work on this specific issue. There is just too much evidence out there that shows otherwise.

That's all BS. If someone is committing fraud through the state governments who have different laws, then that's between the states and the federal government, nothing to do with Planned Parenthood. If the state of New York wants to use its state money to pay for elective abortions, that's their money. If the state of New York cheats the federal taxpayer and intentionally or unintentionally bills the feds for some of that, that's cheating by the state of New York, not Planned Parenthood.

These half-concocted stories would be the same types of services being erroneously billed to Medicaid by all abortion-providers, including the medical clinics and doctors whose provide 78% of the abortion services in the United States.

Planned Parenthood only provides 22% of of abortion services in the US, less than 1/4, so why do you target Planned Parenthood? I can only surmise it's because their patients are largely poor and minority. If there's some other reason, I've sure not been able to come up with one for the decades I've been watching this Witch Hunt against Planned Parenthood.

Originally Posted by Judy

Planned Parenthood doesn't use taxpayer money to fund abortions, that is illegal and doesn't happen.

As has been reported, that money is fungible! It is put in a pot with donated money from other sources so it, in part, is used for abortion. If they maintained separate accounts for all abortion services, it is very likely their abortion service could not continue.

While they point to their breast cancer screening, most of that is referred out to other medical facilities. The abortions they do themselves.

If abortion wasn't such a big part of their business, they wouldn't fight so hard to keep that half billion dollars they get each year. They would give up the abortion and refer that out too, in order to escape the controversy over their government funding going to abortions!

Originally Posted by Judy

The girls and women pay for the procedures themselves and always have.

You're telling me the high school girls, who get abortions without their parents knowledge or permission, are paying for their own abortions?

Originally Posted by Judy

Planned Parenthood only provides or arranges 22% of the abortion procedures in the United States.

And interesting, misleading statistic! What percentage of mammograms in the United States does Planned Parenthood perform? Yet that's what they will point to when they are squealing about losing that federal money. The percentage of their business that is performance of abortions is the statistic you are avoiding.

Originally Posted by Judy

I've never understood why Planned Parenthood is a target of the Pro-Life movement.

Because they are using money from all of us to perform a procedure that many religious people find to be murder.

I am not religious, yet I see monogamy as what nature intended. And likewise, sexual intercourse and babies should be restricted to consolidated families. But premarital sex, which was scorned when I was a kid, is now promoted with TV shows like the Bachelor series. Today, don't worry about STDs, called VD in my younger years, you can get a drug for that. Not always true. And pregnancy is just an inconvenience associated with sex. That too is treatable! To me "abortion" is termination of something started. It is better to not start something you don't desire to keep!

Originally Posted by MW

Are you talking about Sen. Rubio or Sen. Cruz? What CNN Townhall "fiasco" did Sen. Cruz participate in recently? I think you're talking about Sen. Rubio, not Cruz.

My mistake!