Michele Bachmann Defends Medicaid Payments To Husband’s Clinic

[cal04]

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/06/michele-bachmann-defends-medicaid-payments-to-husbands-clinic.php

Presidential hopeful Michele Bachmann (R-MN) is pushing back against charges of hypocrisy over Medicaid payments her husband collected for his therapy practice.

Bachmann's husband, Marcus, runs a Christian counseling agency that has come under scrutiny in the past for its strong religious ties. The Los Angeles Times noted this week that it had received about $30,000 in public funds since 2007, partly federal, to help prepare staff to properly deal with mentally ill patients. On Tuesday, NBC revealed an additional $137,000 in Medicaid payments since 2005, which they said contradicted Rep. Bachmann's claim that her husband only received a training grant that went to employees.

"Medicaid is a valuable form of insurance for many Americans and it would be discriminatory not to accept Medicaid as a form of payment," a spokeswoman for Bachmann's campaign said in a statement on Wednesday responding to questions about the payments. "As a state-sponsored counseling service, Bachmann and Associates has a responsibility to provide Medicaid and medical assistance, regardless of a patient's financial situation."

Critics say that the money undercuts Bachmann's small-government rhetoric, since she's frequently called for scaling back Medicare funds and criticized her state's governor for swelling the "welfare rolls" by expanding the program.

video at link
Isikoff and Lawrence O' Donnell
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/43583232/ns/politics-decision_2012/

[elleng]

1. Yes, medicaid is valuable, + 'discriminatory' not to accept,

OR DISCRETIONARY, whether to accept it. Accepting surely undercuts her rhetoric. She loses this one, folks!!!

[jwirr]

2. Michelle if it is okay to pay for services through you husbands clinic

then it is also okay to pay for them from other providers.

[Angry Dragon]

3. So Marcus hired counselors that graduated from college

but were not trained to counsel so he had to get money to train them
Sounds like TFA teachers