By : RENEE DUDLEY
Source : http://www.postandcourier.com
Category : Small Business Grant
The federal government will not look further into allegations that Gov. Nikki Haley misused a health care reform grant by dictating the recommendations of an independent panel that used the funds, an official confirmed Wednesday.
The state will not be forced to repay the portion of the $1 million federal grant it used to prepare a report involving the health care overhaul. In December, U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, requested an investigation of the state's grant spending. Citing a report in The Post and Courier, he specifically questioned whether the Haley administration "made improper use of taxpayer funds."
On Wednesday, Harkin described the investigators' findings.
"Their examination found that the report prepared with the federal dollars will be of potential value to the federal government in helping to ensure that South Carolinians have access to affordable quality health care through an insurance exchange," according to a statement from Harkin, who is chairman of the Senate's Health, Education, Labor & Pensions Committee.
A central part of the federal health care overhaul, insurance exchanges are the state- or federally established online marketplaces where health coverage will be sold to individuals and small-business employees beginning in 2014.
Haley spokesman Rob Godfrey said in a statement the probe's result "confirms what we've said from day one: everything we did with the com-mission was both extremely productive and entirely appropriate."
In his statement, Harkin said: "It continues to appear that the outcome of the commission was predetermined."
The newspaper reported in December that Haley ordered a health panel's findings last March, before the group met for the first time.
Haley said the 12-member panel should use the exchange planning grant -- intended for studying whether the state should have a federal or a state exchange -- to find a way to avoid Affordable Care Act requirements.
The Health Planning Committee's eventual report mirrored Haley's directive in a March 2011 email that "the whole point of this commission should be to figure out how to opt out and how to avoid a federal takeover, NOT create a state exchange." The Office of Inspector General for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the investigating agency, did not return requests for comment.
"We did a preliminary due diligence, which means we looked at certain aspects of this fund," inspector general spokeswoman Katherine Harris told Politico, a Washington, D.C., publication."We don't think that any further action is necessary."
South Carolina spent about $305,000 of the grant, according to a final budget report.
Reach Renee Dudley at 937-5550 or on Twitter @renee_dudley.
Source : http://www.postandcourier.com/news/2012/mar/15/feds-clear-haley/
