major medical provider in Maine<\/a>, filed lawsuits against Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in July. The Maine provider has been forced to stop it\u2019s primary care services while its lawsuit works its way through the courts.<\/p>\nIn the meantime, seven states \u2014 California, Colorado, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York and Washington \u2014 have directed state funds to compensate for lost federal Medicaid reimbursements. <\/p>\n
That has covered roughly $200 million of the $700 million that the organization spends annually on Medicaid patients, according to Planned Parenthood. <\/p>\n
In light of the shortfall, some clinics will force Medicaid patients to pay out of pocket while others will close altogether, adding to the 20 Planned Parenthood affiliated clinics that have closed since July and the 50 total that have closed since the start of Trump\u2019s second term.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe consequence is for patients who are going to be forced to make impossible choices between essential services,\u201d Planned Parenthood President and CEO Alexis McGill Johnson said in an interview with The Associated Press.<\/p>\n
Abortion at the heart of the debate<\/p>\n
Carol Tobias, president of the National Right to Life Committee, said Trump\u2019s legislation is a step in the right direction. Even though federal tax dollars aren\u2019t used for abortions directly, she said taxpayers are contributing to abortion services even if they are morally or religiously opposed since Medicaid reimbursements help organizations that provide them stay afloat.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo be forced to pay for that is just very objectionable,\u201d Tobias said.<\/p>\n
She suggested Planned Parenthood could stop offering abortions if it wanted to keep providing medical care to vulnerable populations.<\/p>\n
Planned Parenthood\u2019s president has doubled down on the organization\u2019s commitment to providing abortions.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe government should not play a role in determining any pregnancy outcomes,\u201d Johnson said.<\/p>\n
A range of services hit<\/p>\n
Planned Parenthood is the country\u2019s largest abortion provider, but abortions only constituted 4% of all medical services in 2024, according to the organization\u2019s annual report. Testing for sexually transmitted infections and contraception services make up about 80%. The remaining 15% of services are cancer screenings, primary care services and behavioral health services. <\/p>\n
Jenna Tosh, CEO of Planned Parenthood California Central Coast, said in an interview that the Medicaid cuts threaten abortion and non-abortion medical care in equal measure. Roughly 70% of patients who use Planned Parenthood California Central Coast rely on Medicaid, she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cMany of our patients, we are their primary provider of health care,\u201d Tosh said. \u201cYou really start pulling at the thread of the entire health care safety net for the most vulnerable people.\u201d<\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
The story has been corrected to show that the hearing Wednesday is before a judicial panel of the 1st Circuit Court of Appeals, not before a federal judge.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A federal appeals court will hear arguments Wednesday about whether a spending law passed in July that ended…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":373726,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[16542,65237,2731,179865,356,69,57,330,210,1141,3270,1142,179866,2934,2741,2739,2735,401,11198,27931,80,15010,61,67,132,68,436,424,2058],"class_list":{"0":"post-373725","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health-care","8":"tag-access-to-health-care","9":"tag-alexis-mcgill-johnson","10":"tag-boston","11":"tag-carol-tobias","12":"tag-courts","13":"tag-donald-trump","14":"tag-general-news","15":"tag-government-programs","16":"tag-health","17":"tag-health-care","18":"tag-health-care-costs","19":"tag-healthcare","20":"tag-jenna-tosh","21":"tag-legislation","22":"tag-maine","23":"tag-massachusetts","24":"tag-me-state-wire","25":"tag-new-jersey","26":"tag-new-mexico","27":"tag-planned-parenthood","28":"tag-politics","29":"tag-robert-f-kennedy-jr","30":"tag-u-s-news","31":"tag-united-states","32":"tag-unitedstates","33":"tag-us","34":"tag-ut-state-wire","35":"tag-utah","36":"tag-washington"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115537009987291104","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/373725","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=373725"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/373725\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/373726"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=373725"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=373725"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=373725"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}