Tuesday, September 29, 2015

WATCH: "You're Profiting Off Death...Appalling!": Rep. Gosar Drills Planned Parenthood CEO

"You're profiting off death... and that's appalling to me." With that, Arizona Rep. Paul Gosar (R-CD4) rested after his cross-examination of Cecile Richards, the President of the Planned Parenthood Federation of Arizona.


Gosar used his five minutes of the House Oversight Committee time to attempt to show that Planned Parenthood's national organization has increased its profit* by providing less Medicaid-reimbursed healthcare in favor of "profit centers" like abortion.

As he saw his time was expiring, Gosar skipped ahead to his final point and had to tell Richards that he was changing the  process where they had been interrupting each other: "This is my time, this is my time, don't interrupt."

Gosar also attempted to point out that Planned Parenthood has reduced the cost of (some sort of) contraceptives to $3/unit but gets Medicaid reimbursement at the rate of $35/unit.**  Richards disagreed with several parts of that analysis, and Arizona's Politics has not yet researched the issue.



Republicans are attempting to "defund" Planned Parenthood.  Most of the money that the organization receives from the U.S. come through states as Medicaid reimbursements for (non-abortion) medical services.  A small portion comes from Title X grants, for which Planned Parenthood provides family planning (non-abortion) services.

*Gosar and Richards sparred briefly about the term "profit". Planned Parenthood is a non-profit organization, and the two agreed that the amount of "revenue over expenses" has increased over the last several years.

**Gosar pointed out that - as a dentist - he is familiar with Medicaid reimbursements, and that they are not good.

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