I was not the only one criticizing him; a total of six ScienceBloggers wrote about it. The reason was that Bush appointed Keroack to head the family-planning programs at the Department of Health and Human Services. As someone who thinks birth control is immoral, he clearly was not at all suited to the position.
Now we find that he has resigned. But it was not under honorable circumstances.
MassHealth status of ex-HHS head eyed
State probes case a few years old
By Alan Wirzbicki, Globe Correspondent
March 31, 2007
WASHINGTON -- Dr. Eric Keroack, the Massachusetts physician who resigned unexpectedly this week from a top federal family planning position after only 4 1/2 months on the job, is under investigation by state Medicaid authorities in connection with his private medical practice, state officials said yesterday.
A spokesman for the Massachusetts Office of Health and Human Services, Juan Martinez, confirmed the agency had a "pending matter against the doctor" that "dates back a few years," but declined to offer details because the process has not been completed. Most of the department's investigations involve fraudulent Medicaid claims.
According to the statement issued yesterday by the office, it was investigating a matter "pertaining to Dr. Keroack's status as a MassHealth provider."
Keroack, a former Marblehead obstetrician-gynecologist, was appointed to the job in November amid heavy criticism from abortion rights groups for his outspoken opposition to abortion and his connection to crisis-pregnancy centers that show ultrasound images of fetuses to pregnant women in an effort to dissuade them from having abortions.
The government office that Keroack headed until Thursday, the office of Population Affairs at the Department of Health and Human Services, oversees a $283 million annual budget devoted to providing contraceptives, treatment for sexually-transmitted diseases, and cancer screening to low-income individuals...
Yes, he is innocent until proven guilty. We do not know if he actually defrauded Medicaid. But at least he's out.
Comments
Bush's strategy for his Administration has been to cast against type -- Head of Family Planning Services who is against contraception; Ambassador to the UN who is dismissive of the UN; Chairman of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting who wanted to get rid of PBS and NPR; Head of FEMA with no emergency management expertise. The experiment has been an obvious failure. It's just that all the petrie dishes have not been cleaned up yet.
Posted by: Ex-drone | March 31, 2007 3:00 PM
And a plethora of people, starting at the top, who swore a solemn oath:
"... and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."
yet want to get rid of the Constitution, and, for that matter, the "quaint" Geneva Convention.
Posted by: Jonathan Vos Post | March 31, 2007 3:18 PM
Good point, Jonathan.
They will claim that "to the best of my ability" is their escape hatch -- that they were all just a bunch of goofy incompetents. But the damage they've done has mostly been deliberate.
Posted by: Michael Burton | March 31, 2007 3:26 PM