Michele Bachmann Defends Medicaid Funds To Husband Marcus Bachmann's Clinic
06/29/11
ST. PAUL, Minn. — Republican presidential hopeful Michele Bachmann is deflecting questions about federally subsidized health dollars that have flowed to her husband's mental health clinic.
As the tea party hero tours the nation attacking the size of federal government, the Minnesota congresswoman has come under heightened scrutiny over public dollars flowing to family business interests. That includes $137,000 that Bachmann and Associates has received for treating patients in Medicaid-backed programs.
NBC's Michael Isikoff reports:
The previously unreported payments are on top of the $24,000 in federal and state funds that Bachmann & Associates, the clinic founded by Marcus Bachmann, a clinical therapist, received in recent years under a state grant to train its employees, state records show. The figures were provided to NBC News in response to a Freedom of Information request.
The Los Angeles Times reported last weekend:
Michele Bachmann lists the Lake Elmo, Minn.-based clinic — which aims to provide "quality Christian counseling in a sensitive, loving environment," according to its website — as one of her assets on her financial disclosure forms.
Bachmann press secretary Alice Stewart issued a statement Wednesday contending that it "would be discriminatory" for the clinic to turn away Medicaid patients. She says Marcus Bachmann's business has the responsibility to provide the care "regardless of a patient's financial situation."
Neither Michele nor Marcus Bachmann would respond to questions about the arrangement during a campaign stop in South Carolina.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/29/michele-bachmann-medicaid-funds_n_887107.html
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I have NO problem with Marcus Bachmann running a mental health clinic and getting paid Medicare funds when he treats low-income patients as long as he's running a legitimate clinic which complies with normal professional, ethical and medical standards and where there is no evidences of fraud or excessive waste. However, I DO feel that it's inappropriate if ONE SINGLE CENT of MY TAX DOLLARS are used for "Christian counseling". I'll bet you dollars to donuts that Michele Bachmann has either voted or will vote in the future (and make these votes part of her campaign) to cutoff ALL federal funds, INCLUDE MEDICARE payments to Planned Parenthood due to the fact that a very small percentage (less then 5%) of the services they provide involves providing abortions or abortion consoling. Her and her Tea Bagger supporters are big on siting the Constitution whenever they're ranting against Obama and the left, yet NO where in the Constitution is there anything which excludes the federal government from providing funding and direct support to something like Planned Parenthood, yet there it is in the 1st Amendment, a clause which the courts have stated for over a hundred years to mean that the government cannot provide direct support to organizations who go out of their way to describe themselves as being religious in nature. If Michele Bachmann's husband wants to operate a Christian entity, then he should ask for donations and leave the tax payers money to pay for things which are NOT explicitly prohibited in the documents written by out Founding Fathers, as Michele is always so eager to invoke their names and images (even when she gets it all wrong ;-)
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