Would The Media Prefer Mr. Bachmann’s Clinic Turn Away Poor Medicaid Patients?
NBC News's Michael Isikoff believes it's hypocritical of presidential candidate Michele Bachmann to criticize Medicaid because her husband's clinic receives money from this government healthcare program for the poor. As he wrote at MSNBC.com Tuesday evening: While Rep. Michelle Bachmann, R-Minn., has forcefully denounced the Medicaid program for swelling the “welfare rolls,” the mental health clinic run by her husband has been collecting annual Medicaid payments totaling over $137,000 for the treatment of patients since 2005, according to new figures obtained by NBC News. The issue of her receipt of government aid has gotten attention because Bachmann, a Tea Party favorite, has been a fierce critic of federal spending programs and has called for drastic cutbacks. This has especially been the case on health care, including the expansions of Medicaid called for under the new health care law. When Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton signed an executive order earlier this year expanding the state's Medicaid program for more than 95,000 state residents, Bachmann was joined [sic] state Republican lawmakers in denouncing the move. “Right now, Governor Dayton is wanting to commit Minnesota taxpayers to add even more welfare recipients on the welfare rolls at a very great cost,” Bachmann said at a news conference in St. Paul in January. “She's giving hypocrisy a bad name,” said Ron Pollock, executive director of Families USA, a consumer health care advocacy group, when asked about the Medicaid payments to Bachmann & Associates. “It's clear when it feathers her nest she's happy for Medicaid expenditures. But people that really need it — folks with disabilities and seniors — she's turning their backs on them.” Optometrist Jason Whitman noted Wednesday, “Perhaps the author of this article,
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on June 29, 2011. Filed under