Huzzah to the temporary defeat of this guy's effort to cut off Medicaid funds for Planned Parenthood.
Texas
moved to cut off Medicaid funding on Monday for clinics in the state affiliated with Planned Parenthood. The state had previously removed the organization from most family planning funding, but had left the Medicaid payments in place.
The Texas Office of the Inspector General justified the cuts by citing undercover videos purporting to show that Planned Parenthood has been profiting off transfers of fetal tissue for research purposes. The videos are known to have been altered to make their case, private researchers have discovered.
Planned Parenthood officials have denied any law-breaking. Since the editing became known, some prominent national politicians have retreated from their original statements expressing shock and dismay over what they thought the videos showed.
In announcing the cut-off, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott offered up the usual crocodile lies about the state's "unyielding commitment to both protecting life and providing women's health services:"
"Ending the Medicaid participation of Planned Parenthood affiliates in the State of Texas is another step in providing greater access to safe healthcare for women while protecting our most vulnerable—the unborn," he said.
Meanwhile, in Louisiana, a federal judge has
temporarily blocked Gov. Bobby Jindal's attempt to cut off Planned Parenthood funds beginning Monday:
Lawyers for Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast, the Planned Parenthood arm that provides medical services in Louisiana, argued that Jindal's fight to cut funding for its non-abortion-related services is politically motivated.
"In fact, uncontradicted evidence in the record at this time is that PPGC does not perform abortions in Louisiana, is not involved in the sale of fetal tissue and none of the conduct in question occurred at the PPGC's two Louisiana facilities," [U.S. District Judge John] deGravelles wrote in his 59-page ruling. He said it appears likely Planned Parenthood will be able to prove that the funding cutoff was being attempted for reasons unrelated to the organization's competence.
There are big differences between the two states. In most cases, federal and state monies are combined to cover Medicaid reimbursements. But two years ago, Texas lawmakers axed family planning providers having anything to do with abortion (even if they didn't directly provide the procedure) from the Medicaid Women's Health Program. Consequently, the federal government pulled its funding for the service, and it now costs Texans $36 million annually for the state-funded program.
There's more below.
But in Louisiana, 90 percent of the money for family planning still comes from the federal government. The two Planned Parenthood clinics in the state provide services to some 5,200 people each year, according to the organization's records.
When he announced the planned cut-off on August 3, Jindal said, "Planned Parenthood does not represent the values of the people of Louisiana and shows a fundamental disrespect for human life." Patients needing reproductive health care could go elsewhere, he claimed, repeating forced-birther claims around the nation, because "Planned Parenthood is just one of many providers in the Baton Rouge and New Orleans areas."
State attorneys followed those claims with a list of 2,000 supposed providers presented in late August. But when the ophthalmologists, dentists, nursing homes ,and other healthcare providers irrelevant to the needed services were removed from the list, there were just 29 remaining. And some of those don't accept Medicaid reimbursements. Jackie Calmes reported in September:
Louisiana is among a number of states counted as medically underserved: It has a large poor and unhealthy population, with high rates of unintended pregnancies, a shortage of health professionals and too few who will accept Medicaid, as Planned Parenthood does.
And Molly Redden
pointed out last month:
In Louisiana alone, the group last year performed 2,100 well-woman exams, 1,200 pap smears, and 11,000 STI tests, and it administered long-lasting contraceptives 4,100 times, to 5,200 patients, a spokeswoman for Planned Parenthood of the Gulf Coast said. [...]
The Guttmacher Institute, a reproductive rights think tank, published an analysis of nearly 500 counties [nationwide] where Planned Parenthood operates clinics. In 103 of those counties, Planned Parenthood is the health care provider for every single woman who relies on public funding for contraception. In an additional 229 counties, Planned Parenthood clinics provide care for at least half of patients who rely on Medicaid.
The attack on Planned Parenthood is just one more item in the decades-long campaign by forced-birthers to return us to the era of unsafe, illegal abortions in which thousands of women lost their lives, often ending them in excruciating pain. Not to mention the campaigners' concurrent fight against providing universal access to adequate birth control.
It's been clear for some time that forced-birthers will do whatever it takes to win— harassing women, fire-bombing clinics, assassinating abortion providers, imposing ridiculous, medically uncalled-for rules on clinics, setting up "pregnancy crisis centers" whose modus operandi includes a steady stream of lies, and cutting off public funding of Planned Parenthood and other family planning centers that dare to even mention abortion as an option even if they don't provide it.
They're relentless. And all of us who care about women's reproductive rights must be relentless, too.