SouthernWorldwide.com – A Republican hopeful for Maine governor, Jonathan Bush, who is seeking the endorsement of former President Donald Trump, previously operated birthing clinics that catered to migrant women.
Bush, a cousin of former President George W. Bush, made these revelations in his 2014 book, “Where Does it Hurt?”. He described his business, Athena Women’s Health, commonly known as Athena Health, as the largest obstetric practice in San Diego County.
The business largely served Medi-Cal, the state welfare program, and migrant workers. Bush admitted they actively sought this clientele, even using Spanish-language advertisements on local television to attract them.
At its peak, Athena Health was responsible for the birth of thousands of children annually. Bush co-founded a network of birthing clinics with his business partner, Todd Park, who later served as Chief Technology Officer in the Obama administration.
“We actually owned a birth center. And at the height, we were doing 3,000 babies a year,” Bush stated on the Venture Fizz Podcast in 2022. He elaborated that their monthly run rate might have reached 3,300 births.
He characterized the client base as “A lot of low-income families with very low couldn’t, not on Medicaid, had to pay cash, migrant laborers, all kinds of people.”
These past business dealings have surfaced questions regarding whether Bush knowingly facilitated U.S. citizenship for children of non-citizen mothers through birthright citizenship. This comes as he campaigns for the Republican nomination for governor in Maine.
When questioned by Fox News Digital about Athena’s work with immigrants, Bush’s campaign asserted that Athenahealth never provided birthing services. They emphasized that as a healthcare software company, offering such services would have been illegal.
“They have never provided any medical services of any kind. And as I’ve said consistently, I agree with President Trump — illegal immigrants should be deported,” Bush stated.
While the campaign’s claim that Athenahealth, the software company, did not provide medical services is accurate, the earlier venture, Athena Health, in which Bush was involved for less than two years, did indeed operate birthing clinics.
“Our new company started out with twelve clinics scattered through San Diego County,” Bush wrote in his book, referring to Athena Health. “The six doctors and thirty-five midwives were doing two thousand births a year. The midwives were all Latinas. They were warm and friendly and supportive, just what our business plan called for.”
A 2005 profile piece further details the early operations of their main birthing clinic. It described the scene as “listening to the urgent and beautiful sounds of a baby’s first gulps of air from the birthing room nearby.”
The article from 2005 depicted Jonathan Bush and Todd Park in their offices at a San Diego birthing clinic in 1997. They were described as listening to the sounds of newborns. At the time, Bush was 28 and Park was 24, both former Booz Allen Hamilton health-care consultants who believed they could run a physician’s clinic more efficiently.
The Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity also refers to Bush’s work with Athena as a “birthing clinic in San Diego.”
It remains unclear what percentage of his clientele were migrant women. However, based on Bush’s own accounts, they represented a substantial portion of his business.
“‘All migrants all the time.’ It was a laugh line for us, but not a very funny one. This was not the thriving business we envisioned. We were hemorrhaging money,” Bush recounted in his book.
“A lot of low-income families had to pay cash — migrant laborers, all kinds of people,” he added.
Bush is recognized as a healthcare technology entrepreneur, notably as a co-founder of Athenahealth, a company providing cloud-based software and services to medical practices.
“I’ve made my career disrupting the status quo, creating jobs and helping people achieve their American dream,” Bush said in his gubernatorial campaign announcement video in October.
Throughout his campaign, he has emphasized a “Maine-first” approach. He has pledged to boost the state’s appeal to businesses and investors by reducing taxes, conducting audits of local government, and expanding energy supplies through natural gas reserves.
While Bush has heavily relied on his business background to connect with voters, his leading Republican opponent, Bobby Charles, has argued that his past involvement with birthing clinics and their outreach to migrant women contradicts the pro-America, pro-Maine message he is currently promoting.
According to the National Immigration Law Center, undocumented immigrants are generally ineligible for standard insurance programs. This often leads them to seek out services offering lower costs and more flexible payment options.
Bush himself stated that as Athena Health began to serve a higher volume of these clients, the business’s financial stability deteriorated.
“Our popularity worked against us… Pretty soon, most of our remaining clients were indigent. They were either on Medicaid or they had no insurance at all and paid in cash or promised to pay in cash,” Bush wrote in his book.
“I’m probably not giving away anything to tell you that it floundered, and then failed,” he concluded.
Maine’s primary election for governor is scheduled for Tuesday, June 9.
