Congressmen query sudden 2007 jump in Illinois' Medicaid-funded abortions

This week, 83 U.S. House members called for the HHS to look into a sudden hike in the number of abortions Medicaid is funding in Illinois.

from Penny Pullen's Oct 3 Life Advocacy Briefing:

SOME 83 MEMBERS OF THE U.S. HOUSE ARE PRESSING the Dept. of Health & Human Services (HHS) for an investigation into whether the State of Illinois is abusing the federal Medicaid program by seeking reimbursement for abortions which fall outside the narrow limits of the Hyde Amendment.

Under the long-standing amendment first and famously offered by the late Rep. Henry J. Hyde (R-IL), the federal Medicaid program can subsidize only abortions necessary to save the physical life of the mother or, in later iterations since the Clinton regime, abortions to eliminate babies conceived during the commission of a sex crime. Even with the rape/incest loophole, the number of tax-funded Medicaid abortions is expected to be exceedingly scant and has been minuscule.

Indeed, the number of Medicaid-reimbursed abortions nationwide was 196 in 2006, reports Focus on the Family’s CitizenLink, but in 2007, notes CitizenLink, “the number jumped to 458.

“In 2006, Illinois reported 84 federally funded abortions in cases of rape,” a number which even then was high as a share of the nationwide funded death toll. But in 2007, Medicaid reimbursement for abortions committed in Illinois, allegedly limited as under the Hyde Amendment, “jumped to 363,” reports CitizenLink, accounting for the entire nationwide increase.

The Sept. 26 letter from the 83 Congressmen, which seeks “detailed information regarding this increase” – specifically the Illinois increase – is the second letter Members of Congress have sent to HHS seeking such an investigation; the other was sent in June by Representatives Chris Smith (R-NJ) and Bart Stupak (D-MI), co-chairmen of the House Pro-Life Caucus. We publish the text of the letter near the close of this Life Advocacy Briefing and list the signers of the letter next.

Concerned Women for America -- Illinois issued the following statement this morning:

PALOS HEIGHTS -- Eighty-three U.S. Congressmen, including Illinois Congressmen John Shimkus (R-19) and Jerry Costello (D-12) sent a letter dated September 26, 2008, to U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt asking for information about the dramatic and sudden increase in Medicare and Medicaid-funded abortions due to rape in Illinois.

According to a document by the U.S. Health and Human Services Department, the spike, entirely due to increased numbers in Illinois alone, rose from 20 in FY2005 to 84 in FY2006 and 363 in FY2007. Other states show no comparable increases.

The letter requested specific information about this puzzling and alarming increase including whether the abortions were in a particular region or facility in Illinois, if the criminal rapes were verified, and, if unlawfully funded, were the funds recovered or are they in the process of being recovered.

Concerned Women for America (CWA) of Illinois stands with these honorable Congressmen in requesting this vital information in light of the disturbing fact that sexual assault crimes may be involved in these cases in our state.