Leaders on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee let Planned Parenthood and the Department of Health and Human Services know they need some critical documents in their investigation of any role of federal funding in transactions involving body parts.
Chairman Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) and Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), chairman of the subcommittee on Health Care, Benefits and Administrative Rules, noted in the letter to HHS Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell that according to Planned Parenthood’s 2013-14 report, the organization received more than $500 million in government funding that fiscal year accounting for more than 40 percent of the organization’s total revenue.
“The Department of Health and Human Services provided a significant portion of the federal funds that Planned Parenthood received,” the chairmen wrote. “It is not clear whether Planned Parenthood used any federal funds to support transactions involving fetal tissue.”
They asked Burwell to provide a number of documents to the committee by Aug. 28, including how the HHS funding broke down by program, what restrictions or regulations applied to any of the government funds, and what healthcare services are only provided by Planned Parenthood that are not available from other facilities utilizing Medicaid or Obamacare.
Chaffetz and Jordan sent another letter to Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards, noting her group’s “potentially unlawful transactions involving fetal tissue” recently released by the Center for Medical Progress.
Richards was asked to break down, from 2010 until today, Planned Parenthood’s funding sources and “an accounting of all Planned Parenthood activities that were financed with federal funds.”
They also asked for a list of the organization’s top 50 wage-earners since 2010 as well as information on the “66 independently incorporated affiliates” of Planned Parenthood mentioned in the annual report as operating about 700 health centers across the country.
And the chairmen posed to Richards the same question they asked of Burwell: which healthcare services are only provided by Planned Parenthood that are not available from other facilities utilizing Medicaid or Obamacare.
Richards was asked to hand over requested documents and to provide a briefing for committee staff by Aug. 28.
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