A number of Texas Planned Parenthood affiliates said in an open lawsuit on Wednesday that the Texas Health and Human Services Commission did not issue “an appropriate notice of termination” of the program. The state promised to remove groups from the Medicaid program on Thursday.
Texas Health and Human Services Commission spokeswoman Christine Mann declined to comment on the case citing pending litigation.
The impacts of such a change can be stark. In 2019, Planned Parenthood provided health care to more than 8,000 Medicaid beneficiaries in the state, according to the organization’s most recent data available. In addition, Texas has reported nearly 2.5 million cases of Covid-19 and has reported more than 38,000 deaths from the virus, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.
Texas has long tried to ban planned paternity from the program – although Medicaid funding does not cover abortions, except in cases of rape, incest or when a woman’s life is at risk due to the 1976 Hyde Amendment.
The Texas Health and Human Services Commission informed Planned Parenthood affiliates in 2015 that it was cutting the state’s Medicaid program organization, citing secret videos from an anti-abortion activist group, then recently released as evidence of violations.
A federal judge ruled in 2017 that the state could not withhold the provider’s Medicaid funding, saying there was no evidence in the video that planned paternity violated medical or ethical standards. The judge also found no state evidence showing that planned paternity changed abortions to obtain fetal tissue for research.
But the fight surfaced last November, when the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals overturned the district court order, ruling that “if a provider is ‘qualified’ in the sense of [Medicaid statutes] it is an issue to be resolved between the state (or the federal government) and the provider. ”
In turn, Texas Planned Parenthood affiliates asked the Texas Health and Human Services Commission in December whether they could stay on the Medicaid program during the worst of the pandemic, and if not, for “a six-month grace period to allow that our patients take care of urgent health needs during this crisis stage of this pandemic and to allow us to help our patients try to find new providers willing to accept new patients insured by Medicaid. ”
In a January 4 letter, the state commission denied its request to remain on the Medicare program by citing the court order, preventing affiliates from accepting new Medicaid patients, but offering “a 30-day grace period” ending on Wednesday fair for the transition of patients to new providers.
Planned Parenthood President and CEO Alexis McGill Johnson said in a statement on Wednesday that “the governor [Greg] Abbott, encouraged by Trump’s legacy, is hurting the very people who struggle most to survive this pandemic. ”
“By forcing people – disproportionately black and brown, essential workers and single parents – to be left without critical health care, their management is jeopardizing their future, security and the ability to control their own bodies,” she added.
CNN contacted Abbott’s office for comment.
According to 2020 data from the non-partisan Kaiser Family Foundation, Texas has Medicaid’s lowest income eligibility limits as a percentage of the federal poverty level for parents with two children.
Texas is not the only state competing to take Medicaid’s planned Parenthood. In October, the Supreme Court refused to take on an effort by Republicans in South Carolina to cut funding for planned paternity, excluding abortion clinics from the state’s Medicaid program.
But it remains unclear whether the organization’s future as a Medicaid provider will continue to face such challenges.
In 2018, the Trump administration issued a letter to Medicaid state directors rescinding an April 2016 Obama administration directive that warned that cuts in family planning providers would violate federal law. Then President Donald Trump also signed a bill in 2017 allowing states to withhold federal money from organizations providing abortion services, including planned paternity.
The Biden administration is expected to issue guidelines that states cannot bar Medicaid funds from going to qualified healthcare providers who also perform abortions or provide related services, such as Planned Parenthood. CNN contacted the White House to comment on the matter, which was referred to the Department of Health and Human Services.
When asked if and when such guidance would be issued to states, a Health and Human Services spokesman said the agency is “committed to protecting and strengthening the Medicaid program”, consistent with an executive order signed by President Joe Biden this week. last .
