One way or another, there will be a big fight over women's health care leading into the 2016 election. House Republicans are divided now over whether to shut down government over Title X funding to Planned Parenthood—the money that provides contraceptive care and health care for low income patients—or to waste a lot of time and money "investigating" the organization. Leadership prefers the latter option, but that's not to say they won't do both.
Many GOP aides are skeptical of using a funding bill to cut off the group’s government money, aware that the legislation would likely die in the Senate. And, even if Congress could broker a deal on Planned Parenthood, anything that cuts its government funding would likely be vetoed by President Barack Obama.
Instead, House GOP leaders would rather use’s Congress’ broad investigative powers to build an overwhelming case against the group, which they believe would allow them to hammer Planned Parenthood for months and put Democrats under enormous pressure to turn against the women’s health organization.
But conservatives—led by Rep. Jim Jordan’s (R-Ohio) Freedom Caucus—are girding for battle. They see the fight over Planned Parenthood’s money as one of the top legislative priorities of 2015, and they are eager to do anything to end government support. Jordan, in an interview, said an investigation is important, but the leadership must cut off the women’s health group’s money in any spending bill that comes up this fall. He wants to shift the money to community health clinics. And conservatives seem unafraid to shut down the government to achieve their objective—though they say that’s not their goal.
“I think we should stand firm and not fund Planned Parenthood, plain and simple,” Jordan said in an interview Monday. “If Barack Obama and Harry Reid think it’s more important that, Planned Parenthood, after what we know about them, gets taxpayer money, they think that’s more important than funding our troops, that’s a sad commentary on Obama and Reid.”
Jordan has about 20 colleagues lined up, and seems convinced that if there's just enough debate over the issue, Democrats will cave. That's despite that fact that the videos released by the fake "Center for Medical Research" anti-choice extremist group show no wrongdoing by the organization, and that a
growing list of state and federal investigations have cleared the organization. There is nothing behind this "scandal" but a desire by extremists to destroy one of the most popular healthcare organizations—for women, particularly—in the country. They are willing to shut down government over a relatively small amount of money providing health care for women. Jeb! Bush
spoke for them all: "I'm not sure we need half a billion dollars for women's health issues."
Planned Parenthood, it's the new Obamacare. The only difference? Obamacare hasn't been particularly popular with the public, though it's got shutting down government beat by a mile. But Planned Parenthood? It's more popular than any of the Republican candidates for president, far more popular than Congress, and the possibility of defunding it extremely unpopular. Republicans are promising a long-term war here, but they're playing with fire.
