news to me - Medicaid & Planned Parenthood

Hmmmm... Turns out that staunching the flow of federal dollars to Planned Parenthood is not as simple at taking a vote ~or~ even passing a law gutting funding from the detested despised reviled organization.  Yah think that at least Majority Leader McConnell would know that, even if frosh senators Ernst  & Cruz don't.

Apparently,  a good portion of the federal funds flowing to Planned Parenthood are from Medicaid, which has proved almost impossible to separate from the detested despised reviled organization.  Courts have tended to side with Planned Parenthood against the states seeking to cut off  all funding.  

Absolutely positively NOT as simple as Cruz, McConnell, Ernst et al make it seem. 

Attorneys interviewed said Medicaid law has long protected a patient’s right to flexibility in choosing a health care provider (as long as the doctor, clinic or other provider accepts Medicaid). Those safeguards are particularly strong for access to family planning services, said Cindy Mann, an attorney with Manatt, Phelps & Phillips who until recently ran Medicaid for the Obama administration. […] 

Ten states have cut family planning funds, according to the Guttmacher Institute. They include Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Indiana, Kansas, Michigan, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Texas and Wisconsin.

Yet when several states tried to pull Medicaid funding from Planned Parenthood clinics, courts sided with Planned Parenthood and its backers, and stopped all or part of defunding bids in Tennessee, Indiana, Arizona and North Carolina. […]

“The cases where states have tried to take away Medicaid funding from Planned Parenthood have all failed in one way or another,” said Susan Fogel, director of reproductive health for the National Health Law Program. […]

If Congress bars a qualified clinic from participating in Medicaid by pulling its funding, Fogel said it’s likely to be considered discriminatory against the clinics.


If I was an anti-abortion foe expecting Congress will bring gut Planned Parenthood's federal funding, I'd be livid at the Senate & House leaders who are NOT explaining this to the throngs who think they are on the brink of bringing down the despised detested reviled organization.