Abortion groups could get $1.8 million
Madison — Taxpayers could have to pay $1.8 million to attorneys for Planned Parenthood and another abortion provider after courts determined a 2013 law is unconstitutional.
The demand for fees sets up the possibility of Republican officials having to shift taxpayer dollars to one of their biggest political opponents. GOP Attorney General Brad Schimel will likely fight having to pay at least some of the fees, his spokesman said Wednesday.
GOP Gov. Scott Walker and Republican legislators in 2013 approved a measure requiring doctors who perform abortions to have admitting privileges at hospitals within 30 miles of where they perform the procedure.
A judge blocked the law as soon as it took effect and ultimately found it violated the constitutional right to seek abortions. Schimel appealed, but the 7th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals upheld the ruling and the U.S. Supreme Court declined to take the case.
The decision by the nation’s high court to refuse to take the Wisconsin case came a day after it ruled a similar provision of a Texas law was unconstitutional.
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Now, those challenging the Wisconsin law want to be paid. Federal courts typically allow those who bring civil rights claims to recover their legal fees.
Late last week, those bringing the lawsuit wrote in court filings that their bills had come to $1.8 million.
The attorneys represent Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin and Affiliated Medical Service.
Planned Parenthood operates abortion clinics in Milwaukee, Madison and Appleton.
Affiliated operates a clinic in Milwaukee. That clinic was represented by the American Civil Liberties Union of Wisconsin.
The fees are so high in part because Schimel’s team appealed twice to the 7th Circuit and tried to get the case before the U.S. Supreme Court. The attorneys are charging rates of between $450 an hour to $600 an hour.
Schimel spokesman Johnny Koremenos said the attorney general would likely fight having to pay all the fees "to ensure that the state is not paying more than it should be for those fees."
In a statement, Koremenos said the attorney general stood by his litigation strategy. Koremenos did not say how Schimel — an opponent of abortion — felt about having state money go toward Planned Parenthood.
"The attorney general’s personal beliefs are irrelevant," Koremenos' statement said. "As the state’s chief legal counsel, the attorney general has a duty to defend and enforce the laws that are duly enacted by our elected legislature."
Walker also supports fighting the fees, said Walker spokesman Tom Evenson.
Lester Pines, a Madison attorney representing Planned Parenthood, said the state would risk driving up its costs by challenging the fees because such a dispute would result in more billable hours by attorneys. He said Schimel had an obligation to defend the law, but adopted a costly strategy.
"They ran up the cost and now they're saying, 'Gee, we're going to fight who gets paid what,'" Pines said.
Of the hefty legal bill, he said, "That's the risk the state takes when it passes unconstitutional laws."
U.S. District Judge William Conley will have the ultimate say on whether the state has to pay.
Separately, the state Department of Health Services published an audit Wednesday saying clinics run by Planned Parenthood and three other family-planning providers in Wisconsin overbilled the government about $64,000 in 2014.
The agency did not release the audit because it said it included sensitive information that would need to be blacked out. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel has requested the report using the state open records law.
The bills were sent to Medicaid, the state-federal health care program that assists elderly, disabled and low-income people.
Some of the bills were invalid because there was no prescription, the prescription was not signed by a valid prescriber, the amount billed didn’t match the amount prescribed or there was no proof of the prescription being dispensed.
The audit covered Planned Parenthood clinics in Appleton, Green Bay, Madison and two in Milwaukee. It also included clinics run by other organizations in La Crosse, Janesville and Platteville.
Walker said that the results of the audit are "troubling."
"These significant overpayments are not an acceptable use of taxpayer dollars," the governor said in a statement.
But Diane Welsh, an attorney for Planned Parenthood, said the overpayment review has yet to reach a conclusion.
"There will be further review of the findings by an administrative law judge," Welsh said. "This issuance of this press release before answering the providers themselves is unprecedented and calls into question both the integrity of (the inspector general's) process and its motives in presenting a final conclusion without notifying us."
The Walker administration has been fighting with family-planning organizations over their billing for the past two years with mixed results.
In August 2014, state health officials told two family-planning organizations that they owed a total of $3.5 million because they had overbilled Medicaid programs for prescription drugs and certain services.
Then in April 2015, the agency’s Office of Inspector General at the Department of Health Services lowered the amount being sought by the state by more than $3.2 million.
That dispute stemmed largely from conflicting interpretations of how the state reimburses family-planning clinics for contraceptives.
The state contended the clinics — which can buy the drugs at a discount under a federal program — should bill Medicaid for the actual purchase price plus a dispensing fee.
The clinics countered that they were billing the state properly under published rates that allowed a markup to offset operating costs.
Family Planning Health Services, which operates 11 clinics in north-central Wisconsin, was told initially it owed $2,324,751. That was then reduced to $44,707.
Guy Boulton of the Journal Sentinel staff contributed to this report.
