Planned Parenthood clinics in Wisconsin will stop providing abortions on Wednesday, as the association’s centers across the country struggle to navigate the fallout of a law that blocks the reproductive healthcare giant from receiving reimbursements from Medicaid.
Thanks to a provision in Donald Trump’s new tax and spending bill, abortion providers that receive more than $800,000 in reimbursements from Medicaid, the US government’s insurance program for low-income people, are blocked from participating in the program for one year. That provision is so narrowly tailored that it applies almost exclusively to Planned Parenthood, long a conservative target.
It is already illegal to use federal medicaid dollars to pay for most abortions.Instead, Planned Parenthood clinics rely on Medicaid to pay for services like cancer screenings, STI tests and contraception.
By ending its abortion provision, Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin appears to be attempting to continue receiving Medicaid reimbursements for those other services. The measure is intended to be temporary, the regional affiliate said in a statement.
“This was always the intent of the Trump management’s law to ‘defund’ Planned Parenthood: sow chaos and confusion, shut down Planned Parenthood health centers, strip access to essential health care from patients, and make it harder for everyone, everywhere to get an abortion – even in states where it’s legal,” a spokesperson for Planned Parenthood Federation of America, the organization’s national office, said in a statement. “This is the chaos they wanted to see.”
Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin is believed to be the first affiliate to cease providing abortions in a state where the procedure remains legal.
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