Following more than a year of delays, Texas health officials have moved to block Planned Parenthood from receiving Medicaid funds beginning next in January 2017. In October of 2015, Texas officials announced to Planned Parenthood that the state was intending to block the organization from receiving Medicaid funds. Planned Parenthood responded to the move with a lawsuit seeking an injunction against the state.
[AdSense-A]
Over the last year, Texas didn’t follow through on its threat, and Planned Parenthood clinics continued to provide critical health services to Medicaid patients.
However, on Tuesday, the Texas Health and Human Services Inspector General Stuart Bowen sent a letter to Planned Parenthood notifying them that the state would cut off Medicaid funding in 30 days unless the organization requests an administrative hearing with the Texas Health and Human Services Commission in the next 15 days, The Texas Tribune reported.
The Texas Tribune reported that Bowen’s letter referenced undercover videos recorded in Houston by anti-abortion activists who claimed they showed a Planned Parenthood executive improperly offering to sell fetal tissue. However, a grand jury investigation found no evidence of wrongdoing by Planned Parenthood, and instead indicted the two people who recorded the videos for tampering with a government record and illegally offering to purchase human organs.
“Your misconduct is directly related to whether you are qualified to provide medical services in a professionally competent, safe, legal and ethical manner,” Bowen wrote.
Planned Parenthood vows to continue providing health services to Medicaid patients
On Tuesday night after receiving the letter, Planned Parenthood filed a notice in federal court in Austin adding an attorney to its 2015 complaint against the state. And Planned Parenthood officials told The New York Times they would continue to provide care to Medicaid patients and would seek an injunction in federal court to stop the state from blocking funds.
[AdSense-B]
The actions by Texas follow events earlier this month where the Obama Administration the federal finalized a regulation that says “states that award federally funded grants for women’s health programs can’t discriminate against Planned Parenthood.” The regulation was written specifically to prevent states from doing what Texas is currently trying to do – block organizations like Planned Parenthood who provide health services to women from receiving Medicaid funds.
In other states, federal courts have struck down laws that attempted to block Medicaid dollars from clinics associated with organizations that provide abortions. And this September, a federal judge found that a similar law in Arkansas violated Medicaid statutes protecting the rights of patients. And again in October, a federal judge in Mississippi came to the same conclusion that a law passed by the Mississippi was, “Essentially every court to consider similar laws has found that they violate § 1396a(a)(23) of Title 42 of the United States Code, the so-called “Free Choice-of-Provider Provision.”
