Planned Parenthood and several other women’s health providers have filed a case on Texas and other Republican states over cutting Medicaid funds.
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In the past, two federal courts have said states can’t block specific health providers from seeing Medicaid patients if they meet all the critera for a qualified provider. Texas Medicaid only provides abortion under the narrow federal exceptions of rape, incest, and life endangerment. The committee was hearing testimony on the use of taxpayer funding by Planned Parenthood and its affiliates.
Federal courts have halted similar attempts in Arkansas, Louisiana and Alabama while lawsuits play out. The 7th and 9th Circuit Courts have also ruled against states that tried to push abortion providers out from Medicaid.
Planned Parenthood is now trying to hang onto Medicaid reimbursements at its Texas clinics, including those that don’t perform abortions. The committee was formed to investigate whether Planned Parenthood and MU were following state law.
Any sort of lawsuit, McQuade confirmed, would have to be filed before December 1, which is the deadline for the Missouri State Department of Health to pull the Columbia clinic’s license.
Now that the attorney general has weighed in, lawmakers should move beyond this fetal-tissue controversy and ensure women’s health care is protected and funded next session.
This isn’t the first time Planned Parenthood has sued the state over being pushed out of a joint federal-state program. And let’s be clear: “That is illegal and it’s a violation of federal law”, Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, told a teleconference with reporters. Gov. Jay Inslee said: “The effort by some state legislators to baselessly discredit Planned Parenthood was part of a national effort to restrict access to legal medical services for millions of women”.
Planned Parenthood has already denied the contents of the video, claiming that they had been heavily edited.
In a joint statement, both Planned Parenthood clinics called Fallin’s actions “premature” and “incredibly disappointing”.
McQuade and a student group supporting Planned Parenthood also said Columbia campus Interim Chancellor Hank Foley canceled a Wednesday meeting with them on the topic, although the university said such a meeting never was scheduled.
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“Politicians may think they can bully us out of providing care for our patients, but we will not back down, and we will not shut our doors”. The release cites statistics from a January report that showed a 30,000-patient drop from the Texas Women’s Health Program for low-income women between 2011, when the state took over the program, and 2013.
