Court clears way to cut clinics’ funding

Texas may exclude Planned Parenthood from Medicaid program, 5th Circuit decides

Texas can bring back its ban on Medicaid funding of Planned Parenthood, the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Monday.

Opponents of legal abortion have long sought to deny funding from the federal-state health insurance program to Planned Parenthood because some of its affiliated clinics perform abortions. Abortion rights supporters and advocates for women’s health have argued that the move also would deny needy women the right to choose their providers for a variety of vital non-abortion health services.

“The Fifth Circuit correctly rejected Planned Parenthood’s efforts to prevent Texas from excluding them from the state’s Medicaid program,” said Attorney General Ken Paxton in a statement. “Planned Parenthood is not a ‘qualified’ provider under the Medicaid Act, and it should not receive public funding through the Medicaid program.”

Among the five Medicaid providers involved in the suit were two Planned Parenthood affiliates serving the Houston and San Antonio areas.

Melaney A. Linton, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast, which is headquartered in Houston, called the ruling “yet another devastating blow in Texas’ long history of preventing people from accessing life-saving and essential health care at Planned Parenthood.”

“Texas politicians have shown time and time again that they value extremist agendas over Texans’ access to quality, affordable health care,” Linton said.

Texas joined several other Republican-led states in using misleading video published by the anti-abortion group Center for Medical Progress in 2015 as cause for cutting off funding to Planned Parenthood that year.

The heavily edited video purported to show abortion providers illegally selling fetal tissue for profit, though unedited video reveals that parts of the video were omitted that showed the staff member explaining that the cost was for reimbursement of the clinics’ expenses.

In October 2015, state officials said Planned Parenthood had violated accepted medical and ethical standards, and in turn, Texas’ Medicaid program requirements, and began the process of knocking the provider out of the program. Planned Parenthood sued the state, kicking off this long-running legal battle.

Monday’s decision by the full 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans reverses an earlier ruling by a three-judge appellate panel that blocked Texas from enforcing its ban on Medicaid funding of Planned Parenthood. A federal district judge in Austin had blocked the ban in 2017.

The 5th Circuit also expressly reversed a ruling blocking Louisiana from banning Planned Parenthood funding. A threejudge panel had ruled against the ban, and that decision stood when the full court deadlocked 7-7 in 2017, when therewere only 14 active judges on the court.

The court found that the panel had erred in ruling that individual plaintiffs had standing to question the state’s determination of a provider as unqualified.

This time, 16 judges — including five nominees of President Donald Trump — participated in the case and 11were in the majority.

In dissent, two judges said the case will leave millions in Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi, which falls under 5th Circuit jurisdiction, “vulnerable to unlawful state interference with their choice of health care providers.”