Defunding blamed for clinic closures, drop in cancer screenings
Planned Parenthood and two smaller regional abortion providers — Health Imperatives in Massachusetts and Maine Family Planning — can once again bill Medicaid for services other than abortion, after a yearlong funding cutoff mandated in President Donald Trump’s tax and policy law. The Medicaid billing resumed Sunday, according to the Associated Press.
The defunding, which was included in the legislation Trump signed last year, has been blamed for the closure of multiple clinics and a reduction in the number of patients being screened for breast cancer or tested for sexually transmitted infections, the AP reported. The law cut off Medicaid reimbursements for providers like Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers that received more than $800,000 in 2023, as MSI previously reported that a federal appeals court had allowed the restrictions to remain in effect during litigation and that Planned Parenthood later dismissed its lawsuit challenging the policy.
The resumption does not mean the battle over federal abortion policy has ended, the AP reported. Not all services that were cut will return. The restored funding covers non-abortion preventive care such as birth control, cancer screenings, and STI testing, but the affected providers lost reimbursements for most of a year, a period they have cited for forcing clinic closures and reducing patient access.