Jonathan Bush, a Republican gubernatorial candidate in Maine who has been vying for endorsement ahead of this week’s June 9 primary, previously ran a network of birthing clinics in the San Diego County area that often catered to migrant women, a Fox News Digital review found.
“Here we were, the largest obstetric practice in County and our business was mostly Medi-Cal, the state welfare program, and migrant workers. We needed their business and even appealed to them with Spanish-language ads on local TV,” Bush, who was referring to Athena Women’s Health, commonly known at the time as Athena Health, recounted in Where Does it Hurt? â a 2014 book he co-authored.
At its height, Athena Health helped give birth to thousands of children, according to Bush, who opened a network of birthing clinics with his business partner, Todd Park, who would go on to serve years later as the chief technology officer during the Obama administration.
“We actually owned a birth center. And at the height, we were doing 3,000 babies a year,” Bush told the audience on the Venture Fizz Podcast in 2022. “If you multiplied our monthly run rate, maybe 3,300. So really big, prosperous, not prosperous. A lot of low-income families with very low couldn’t, not on Medicaid, had to pay cash, migrant laborers, all kinds of people.”
Bushs resurfaced comments about his business raise questions about whether he had knowingly helped women, who may not have been American citizens, secure U.S. citizenship for their children through birthright citizenship and come as he wages a campaign to become the Republican nominee for governor in Maine.
When pressed by Fox New Digital with questions about Athena’s work with immigrants, the Bush campaign pushed back, arguing that Athenahealth had never offered birthing services and that, as a healthcare software company, it would have been illegal to provide them.Â
“To distract from his flailing campaign, 25-year DC lobbyist Bobby Charles continues to lie about my record of creating hundreds of Maine jobs,” Bush said in a statement to Fox News Digital. “Ironically, Lobby Charles â who lied about his military service â lobbied for a liberal pro-illegal immigrant, pro-gun control, pro-birthright citizenship California Democrat Attorney General. Here’s the truth without the Lobbyist Lies: athenahealth/Athena Women’s Health provided software, billing, and management services to 116,000 American doctors.”Â
“They have never provided any medical services of any kind. And as I’ve said consistently, I agree with President Trump â illegal immigrants should be deported,” Bush, a first cousin to former President added.
While Bush’s statement about Athenahealth not providing medical services with birthing clinics is accurate, the failed venture, Athena Health, that Bush was initially involved with for less than 2 years was operating birthing clinics.
“Our new company started out with twelve clinics scattered through San Diego County,” Bush said in his 2014 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 also reveals the early days of their main birthing clinic, where they were “listening to the urgent and beautiful sounds of a babys first gulps of air from the birthing room nearby.”
“Jonathan Bush and Todd Park sat in their offices in a San Diego birthing clinic in 1997, listening to the urgent and beautiful sounds of a babys first gulps of air from the birthing room nearby. The cries were music for the two fresh-faced former Booz A
