SOURCE: www.help.senate.gov
WASHINGTON – Following revelations that South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley may have dictated the findings of a nonpartisan health care panel funded by taxpayer dollars, Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee Chairman Tom Harkin (D-IA) today called for a federal investigation into whether Governor Haley exploited taxpayer dollars for political purposes. In a letter sent today to Department of Health and Human Services Inspector General Daniel R. Levinson, Harkin requested that the IG determine whether Governor Haley improperly used a $1 million grant awarded to South Carolina for the purpose of planning their state health care exchange under the Affordable Care Act, and if so, whether the state should repay the taxpayers.
“In authorizing exchange planning grants through the ACA, Congress intended that taxpayer funds would enable states, working in good faith, to carefully review insurance market options under state and federal law, including the ACA,” Harkin said in the letter. “It was certainly not the intent for those taxpayer funds to be distributed for a predetermined and meaningless outcome. Spending taxpayer funds to construct an ideologically-motivated façade not only violates Congress’s intent, but also the public’s trust in government.
“In light of these facts, I ask that you examine whether the state of South Carolina met the requirements of federal law in spending its exchange planning grant and whether that grant should be returned to the federal government in full.”