The Obama administration has notified three states that have taken steps to halt Medicaid funds to Planned Parenthood Federation of America that they may be in conflict with federal law, government officials tell The Wall Street Journal.
Federal law requires that Medicaid beneficiaries may obtain services, including family-planning care, from any qualified provider. Terminating Planned Parenthood’s Medicaid provider agreements restricts access by not permitting them to get services from providers of their choice, according to the Department of Health and Human Services.
The action comes as a sixth video was released by the Center for Medical Progress, an anti-abortion group, showing a former employee of a tissue-procurement company saying fetal remains were taken from women and donated for research without their consent.
“The video released today shows someone who has never worked for Planned Parenthood making false and outrageous claims, without any evidence to back them up,” says Eric Ferrero, a spokesman for Planned Parenthood, in a statement.
Gov. Bobby Jindal announced last week that Louisiana was ending its provider agreements that reimbursed Planned Parenthood for providing health care services to low-income women through the government-funded Medicaid insurance program. Termination of the agreements came after the Center for Medical Progress released its initial batch of secretly recorded videos showing Planned Parenthood officials describing how they provide aborted fetal tissue for medical research.
Aside from Louisiana, Alabama and New Hampshire also announced last week they will block hundreds of thousands of dollars originally intended for Planned Parenthood. Not all of those states have Planned Parenthood clinics that perform abortions, including Louisiana. Planned Parenthood says they are now watching for potential defunding measures in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, a unit of HHS, has notified Louisiana and Alabama, which have taken action to terminate their Medicaid provider agreements with Planned Parenthood, that they may be in conflict with federal law, according to HHS. CMS says that by restricting which provider a woman could choose to receive care from, women could lose access to critical preventive care, such as cancer screenings.
The agency reached out to Louisiana’s Medicaid director on Aug. 5 and spoke with Alabama’s Medicaid agency on Aug. 7.
Mike Reed, a spokesman for Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, tells The Wall Street Journal the Medicaid contract between the state health department and Planned Parenthood gives either party the right to cancel the contract at will with a 30-day notice.
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