Watchdog Organization Calls for (Another) Investigation into Failed Texas Anti-Abortion Group
A watchdog organization is calling for a federal investigation into the Heidi Group, a controversial Texas anti-abortion group that is now accused of lying on its new application for family planning funds. This comes just months after the state health agency canceled the Heidi Group’s multimillion-dollar contracts after the group served a fraction of the patients it pledged to treat. The state’s Office of the Inspector General is also conducting an investigation into more than $1 million in questionable spending.
The Campaign for Accountability, a left-leaning Washington, D.C., nonprofit that has tracked the Heidi Group since it was awarded $7 million worth of Texas women’s health contracts in 2016, sent a letter on Thursday to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services requesting an investigation into alleged errors on the group’s application for funding under the federal Title X family planning program. The letter is a response to a Wednesday report from the Houston Chronicle that the Heidi Group is included in a Title X grant application by the Catholic, California-based Obria Group. The application also includes two other Texas crisis pregnancy centers: Midland Community Healthcare Services, and the Community Wellness Clinic of Conroe.
The application, submitted in January, “appears to inflate the number of patients seen by the Heidi Group clinic on a regular basis, identifies a former employee as Heidi Group’s top quality assurance officer even though she had left the organization eight to nine months before the organizations submitted the application, and fails to disclose pertinent information regarding the Heidi Group’s terminated state contracts,” wrote Alice Huling, counsel at Campaign for Accountability, in the Thursday letter.
Carol Everett, an anti-abortion activist and founder and CEO of the Heidi Group, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The organization told the Chronicle that it is looking into the alleged application error.
Read more: https://www.texasobserver.org/watchdog-organization-calls-for-another-investigation-into-failed-texas-anti-abortion-group/