Judge allows Texas to remove planned paternity from Medicaid program

Judge allows Texas to remove planned paternity from Medicaid program

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Texas has long tried to ban planned parenthood, which provides abortions in Texas, from Medicaid. Medicaid funding does not cover abortions, except in cases of rape or incest or when a woman’s life is at risk due to the 1976 Hyde Amendment.

Several Texas Planned Parenting affiliates sued the state last month for moving to ban the program’s Planned Parenthood in light of a federal appeals court order in November allowing states to determine whether or not providers are eligible to participate in Medicaid. .

The groups said the Texas Health and Human Services Commission did not issue an “adequate notice of termination” of the program. Later that day, a Texas county judge temporarily blocked his expulsion from the Medicaid program, with the state scheduled for the following day.

But in a decision on Wednesday, Travis County Civil District Court Judge Lora Livingston wrote that the groups “do not cite authority for the proposition that a court order requires the (Texas Office of Inspector General) notify your termination again. “

“This decision is not taken lightly,” continued Livingston. “In light of the ongoing public health crisis, the risks of an individual losing health care and medical care require greater attention and scrutiny. The facts underlying termination in this case give me a great deal of hesitation. However, (the groups) chose the federal courts as the forum to challenge the merits of their claims … (which) must be determined by the federal courts. “

The impacts of leaving planned Parenthood from the program can be severe. In 2019, Planned Parenthood provided health care to more than 8,000 Medicaid beneficiaries in Texas, according to the organization’s most recent figures available.
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 a father with two children. In addition, Texas has reported more than 2.7 million cases of Covid-19 and more than 45,000 deaths from the virus, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.

In a statement on Wednesday, President of the Planned Parenthood Action Fund, Alexis McGill Johnson, accused Texas Governor Greg Abbott, a Republican, of continuing “to put his policy ahead of the people he was elected to serve. “.

“As Texans struggle with the growing pandemic crises and the impacts of the deadly winter storm, thousands of people who depend on Medicaid will now face another obstacle built by Governor Abbott: finding a new provider in a state where there is a lack of provider” , she said. “It didn’t have to be that way for Texans.”

CNN contacted Abbott for comment. Christine Mann, the press officer for the Texas Health and Human Services Commission, declined to comment on the case, citing ongoing litigation.

Bonyen Lee-Gilmore, director of state media campaigns for the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, said the organization was “exploring all of our options” in relation to the next moves in the struggle to stay on the program.

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 a recently released anti-abortion activist group as evidence of violations. But a federal judge ruled in 2017 that the state could not withhold the provider’s Medicaid funding, saying there was no evidence in the videos of an anti-abortion activist group that Planned Parenthood violated medical or ethical standards.
Following the appeals court’s decision last year, 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 period six-month grace period to allow our patients to meet 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 letter dated Jan. 4, the state commission denied his request to remain on the Medicaid program, citing the court’s order. The commission banned affiliates from accepting new Medicaid patients, but it provided “a 30-day grace period” for patients to transition to new providers, ending in February, one day after Texas Planned Parenthood affiliates took action.

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