Women’s health provider cut from Medicaid

Clients facing a 30-day deadline

Thousands of low-income Texans have less than a month to find new providers of birth control, cancer screenings and other non-abortion services as the state moves forward with plans to boot Planned Parenthood from its Medicaid program, according to a letter sent from the state health agency.

The nonprofit had asked for at least a six-month extension to help recipients transition to new providers, following a November court ruling that allowed Republican officials to stop reimbursing it for Medicaid services. In the letter sent Monday, however, the health agency said it has only until Feb. 3, and is prohibited from accepting any new Medicaid patients.

Planned Parenthood served about 8,000 Medicaid recipients last year. The program helps lowincome Texans, but many health providers don’t participate because of low reimbursement rates from the state.

“The Medicaid network needs more providers, not fewer,” Planned Parenthood said in a statement denouncing the decision, adding that it will harm people of color and women most. “Gov. (Greg) Abbott knows full well that other providers can’t just absorb Planned Parenthood’s family planning patients — a well-documented fact explained by the experts, including the American Public Health Association.”

Republican officials including Abbott have been trying to remove the organization from Medicaid since 2015, following the release of an edited video purporting to show Planned Parenthood officials selling fetal tissue.

No wrongdoing by Planned Parenthood officials was ever substantiated in that case.

A lower court blocked the state’s move in 2017, but the decision was overturned in November by the conservative U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals.

Planned Parenthood does donate fetal tissue from abortions for medical research and other legal uses.

A spokesman for Abbott did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the decision, which was first reported by the Texas Tribune.

In a call last month with reporters, Planned Parenthood South Texas President and CEO Jeffrey Hons said its clinics are some of the only options for lowincome communities, especially Black and Latina women who have less access to health care than white women and whose families have been disproportionately impacted by COVID-19.

To qualify for Medicaid in Texas, a single woman with a dependent child can’t make more than $196 per month.