WASHINGTON, Nov 7 (Reuters) - The US Justice Department is stepping into Texas' years-old lawsuit accusing Planned Parenthood of Medicaid fraud, according to a court filing made days after voters elected Democrat Nathan Johnson as the state's next attorney general.
The DOJ move, in a legal filing on Friday night, would give the federal government a direct role in a 2021 case championed by outgoing Republican Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who lost his bid to become a US senator.
Paxton and an anonymous
plaintiff are seeking to force Planned Parenthood to return money it allegedly collected from Texas' and Louisiana's Medicaid programs after the states cut off its funding, plus heavy additional penalties.
Planned Parenthood has said it would be forced to shut down in Texas if it loses the case.
The lawsuit accuses Planned Parenthood of violating the federal False Claims Act by having continued to bill and collect payments from the states' Medicaid programs after the initial termination decisions, and failing to repay what it received once the terminations eventually took effect.
Planned Parenthood has said that billing the states while their termination decisions were paused by courts was legal, and that it cannot be held liable because it was giving legal advice to affiliates.
But the US 5th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled unanimously in August that Planned Parenthood's appeal of a 2023 decision denying the national group immunity from the lawsuit was premature, paving the way for the case to continue after a nearly three-year pause.
(Reporting by Patricia Zengerle; Editing by Sergio Non and Cynthia Osterman)
