Medicaid patients left in limbo by court ruling
AUSTIN — Planned Parenthood is urging Texas health officials to give it six months to help Medicaid recipients who use its clinics for nonabortion services to find other providers after a decisive court loss that could cut off care to thousands of vulnerable Texans, many of them women of color.
In a letter this week to Health and Human Services Commissioner Cecile Young, the organization said it needed the time to help patients who otherwise might be unable to find alternative care — especially during the pandemic.
“We would very much like to continue to serve these patients, but hope that, at a minimum, we can work with HHSC to establish a smooth transition period for the thousands of Texans we serve every year through the Medicaid program,” leaders of the three Planned Parenthood Texas affiliates wrote.
The plea comes after the conservative U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals sided last month with state officials who sought to remove Planned Parenthood from the government-funded health program after an edited video was released purporting to show
officials selling fetal tissue.
A lower court had blocked the state’s move in 2017.
Planned Parenthood, which does donate fetal tissue for research and other legal uses, never was found to have committed any wrongdoing. Republican state officials still say the footage warranted action.
The video “plainly showed Planned Parenthood admitting to morally bankrupt and unlawful conduct,” Attorney General Ken Paxton said in a statement after last month’s ruling.
The organization’s Texas affiliates have been in limbo since the appeals court ruling, unsure whether they can continue billing the program for nonabortion services including birth control, cancer screenings and treatment for sexually transmitted diseases.
They serve more than 8,000 Medicaid recipients in Texas.
In a call with reporters Thursday, Planned Parenthood South Texas President and CEO Jeffrey Hons said its clinics are some of the only options for low-income communities, especially Black and Latina women, who have less access to health care than do Anglo women and whose families have been disproportionately impacted by COVID-19.
Many health care providers don’t take Medicaid because of the state’s low reimbursement rates.
“People who rely on Medicaid are the most vulnerable Texans and likely experiencing some of the worst economic effects of the pandemic,” Hons said. “Forcing them to scramble for basic health care is terrible policy. It is certainly uncharitable, and it’s indeed un-American.”
Gov. Greg Abbott, who spearheaded the effort to kick Planned Parenthood out of the program in 2015, has yet to weigh in. A spokeswoman didn’t respond to a request for comment.
A spokeswoman for the health agency, which takes guidance from the governor, did not respond to questions about the letter. Undercover video plainly showed Planned Parenthood admitting to morally bankrupt and unlawful conduct, including violations of federal law by manipulating the timing and methods of abortions to obtain fetal tissue for their own research,” Paxton said in a statement.
To qualify for Medicaid in Texas, a single woman with a dependent child can’t make more than $196 per month.
Since 2017, when the termination first was scheduled to go into effect, Planned Parenthood clinics in Texas have provided Medicaid recipients with 44,000 tests for sexually transmitted diseases, more than 2,100 cancer screenings and more than 52,000 units of contraception, the organization says.
“It is absurd to think that Planned Parenthood’s family planning patients can just go somewhere else,” Harris County Commissioner Rodney Ellis said. “We don’t have enough providers out there.”
He added, “If you are insistent on doing the wrong thing, there is a right way that you can do it. Give these providers time, and let people make the transition to find somewhere else to go.”