Breaking: Obama appointee blocks Indiana from defunding Planned Parenthood
No surprise. From Bloomberg, last night:
An Indiana law defunding Planned Parenthood was blocked by a federal judge who said opponents of the statute showed a likelihood of success in the lawsuit.
U.S. District Judge Tanya Walton Pratt [pictured below left] in Indianapolis today granted Planned Parenthood’s request for a preliminary injunction in a lawsuit filed after Republican Governor Mitch Danielssigned the law in May.
“While it remains to be seen who will ultimately prevail on the merits, the court is persuaded” that Planned Parenthood demonstrated a “reasonable likelihood of success” in challenging the law, Pratt wrote in today’s decision.
The Indiana law would prohibit state agencies from entering into contracts with or making grants to any entity that performs abortions or maintains a facility where they’re performed.
“The public interest also tilts in favor of granting an injunction,” Pratt said, because the federal government has threatened partial or total withholding from the state as much as $5 billion dollars a year in Medicaid funds, affecting almost 1 million residents.
“Denying the injunction could pit the federal government against the state of Indiana in a high-stakes political impasse,” Pratt said. “If dogma trumps pragmatism and neither side budges, Indiana’s most vulnerable citizens could end up paying the price as the collateral damage of a partisan battle.”
Indiana will likely appeal, according to Reuters.
Jill Stanek is a nurse turned speaker, columnist and blogger, a national figure in the effort to protect both preborn and postborn innocent human life.
Wow! What blindness and hypocrisy! In the name of protecting the weak and vulnerable, she blocks legislation that would provide a measure of protection to those who are even more weak and vulnerable! The irony is amazing.
Once again, an activist, liberal, appointed judge, unaccountable to the people she “serves,” trumps the people of Indiana and their duly elected representatives. Anything goes if it means abortionists can keep on slicing babies in their mother’s wombs. Can God’s righteous judgement be far?
This is a terribly problematic precedent to set. If an entity to which the state is not in debt can demand that that state pay them money anyway and have those demands be successful, who exactly does the state not have to give money to? I can’t imagine how Planned Parenthood could have a more meritorious legal case seeing as Indiana doesn’t owe them anything to start off with.
Alice – I don’t understand your point – the funding is from the feds – they are essentially just saying “here’s the medicare program and the laws that are setup for it – a state can’t then pick and choose and overrule that federal law”.
Jody – interesting point though – I hope you have been using that in regards to health care reform and “activist” judges that are stepping in and overruling elected representatives.
“the federal government has threatened partial or total withholding from the state as much as $5 billion dollars a year in Medicaid funds, affecting almost 1 million residents.”
Uh, 5 billion?
That has to be a typo.
Jody and Ex-GOP Voter, judges don’t serve the people in the sense that elected officials serve the people. The job of the federal judge is ensure that laws are constitutional, whether or not the popular majority favors that particular law. In this case, however, the judge seems to be at odds with the constitution. The constitution stresses states rights. The healthcare reform does a good job of ignoring them. Not only that, but the majority of the people opposed the reform, a fact that their reps largely ignored. The passage of the healthcare reform was not representative of the public’s wishes.
So… because the feds are essentially blackmailing Indiana, this judge’s opinion is that we give the blackmailers what they want and back away slowly?
Hmm.
Claire – you are all over the board logically with that post. You start off saying judges rule regardless of public opinion, and end saying that healthcare reform was not representative of the public’s wishes. So you do think judges should simply rule in favor of public opinion?
States rights have limits, especially when it comes to funding from a federal entity, or issues of federal law.
Kel/Claire – if Indiana wants to make all the rules on Medicare/Medicaid funding, they should simply deny all funds from Medicare/Medicaid, raise taxes within the state, and fund their own operations.
I’d also urge you to read part of the opinion – it simply states (and also within the post) that the merits of the case will be decided over time, but seeing that there’s a reasonable sense that the law won’t stick, it is been put on hold. That happens all the time and seems very reasonable.
Hey, if Indiana doesn’t want five billion dollars a year in Medicaid money, they don’t have to take it. Why should they be able to flaunt federal law while receiving federal funding? I’m sure other states that are willing to follow the rules when playing the game would be more than happy to take that five billion dollars and do something good with it. If Indiana’s legislators and governor are that intent on taking a stand against Planned Parenthood, then they should man up and tell their constituents that sorry, appeasing social conservatives is more important than your Medicaid, you’ll just have to do without.
Ex-GOP, you seem to have misunderstood what I was saying. I probably wasn’t clear enough. My point about the health care reform is that it was the representatives of the states that weren’t actually representing their constituents’ wishes when they voted in favor of the health care reform. Nowhere did I say that the judges weren’t representing the wishes of the people. That’s not the judge’s job; it is the job of elected officials, however. I was just correcting what seemed to be a misunderstanding of the job of a judge.
Claire – I agree with that – in the last 6 or 7 years, I think there’s been 20 national polls where the majority have wanted single payer healthcare…I think we’ll move to that very quickly if health care reform is found unconstitutional…if it does become law and sticks, I think that will delay single payer health care for a while.
@Ex-GOP: This isn’t a Medicare thing. I know we often talk about them in the same breath, but Medicare, which is entirely a federal program, is almost exclusively for seniors (everyone eligible who isn’t over 65 either has to be collecting Social Security or have one foot in the grave and the other on a banana peel). For Medicaid, each state administers its own program, which is why Medicaid programs differ from state to state. This program is run by Indiana, not the Federal government. While the Feds may provide some of the funding, the primary agency in charge of this is the state of Indiana.
Alice – I believe you are right and wrong.
Funding is dual – from the state and the feds – but according to what I’ve read – the state program must conform to federal guidelines to receive the federal funding component. It’s not just “hey, here’s your money”, and if the state wants to spend it on roads, or only certain medical treatments, they can – they have to adhere to some federal regulations regarding the program.
That settles it. We need to directly shut down planned parenthood clinics and offices all over Indiana. The government won’t do it then we will need to do it.
It is weird…. the number of commentors here who imply that Indiana is receiving “free” Medicare dollars from the Federal government.
Basically, Indiana residents worked and earned and paid income taxes to the Federal Government.
Then the Federal government borrowed a rougly equal amount of money, which the children of Indiana residents will be required to repay.
And now the Federal Government is giving this money back to Indiana, with specific instructions as to whom the money must be given to. Someone explain to me again: Why does Obama have the right to force Indiana to give money to Planned Parenthood? Why does Obama have authority to withhold $5 billion in aid to the poor because Indiana refuses to give a few million to Planned Parenthood?
Attorneys General in Indiana have investigated PP due to embarrassing and illegal behavior uncovered by Lila Rose, in which PP sent abused and pregnant minors to Illinois for secret abortions. Indiana has lost confidence in PP.
http://liveaction.org/mona-lisa/indianapolis-in
http://liveaction.org/mona-lisa/bloomington-in
Del – this is nothing new to the administration – Medicare/Medicaid funding has been around for a long time, and has always had federal oversight/regulations.
Del: “Basically, Indiana residents worked and earned and paid income taxes to the Federal Government. Then the Federal government borrowed a rougly equal amount of money, which the children of Indiana residents will be required to repay. And now the Federal Government is giving this money back to Indiana, with specific instructions as to whom the money must be given to.”
Indiana receives 97% of its federal taxes back in federal spending, apparently. So yeah, they should have a say in the matter.
Sure wish the federal government received its taxes from state legislators instead of a state’s citizens, directly.
It’s all well and good to say Indiana must follow federal guidelines to retain federal dollars, okay, I’ll bite…except that federal guidelines specifically state that states may choose which providers are elligible for medicaid/medicare funding as long as they don’t discriminate based on age/sex/religion. It’s perfectly legal to ban this clinic and let that clinic accept medicaid for any number of reasons. For instance some states allow chiropractors to be eligible for reimbursment, while others don’t. States are under no obligation to choose any specific doctor, hospital, clinic, practice, or even realm of medicine (for instance cosmetic surgery is usually not covered but urology is, naturopathic doctors aren’t usually covered but CNP frequently are). PP objection boils down to “we think we are entitled to monies that are given at the discretion of the state” and because PP is the golden child serving forth the sacred sacrement of the liberal left, they apparently have a case, while the chiropractor would get laughed out of court. The federal guidelines do not require the state to give funding to any specific entity and PP have absolutely *no* case by the letter of the law. But hey, they do abortions, so better the federal government pull tax money support from millions of people than people who want elective abortions be inconvienced.
Jespren – can you post into supporting that? I’m not saying you aren’t right – I’m just saying that everything I’ve read is contrary to that – that a state can’t pick and choose who is eligible and who isn’t.
Ex-GOP Voter, unfortunately all my internet acces is via cell and I have limited bookmarking, saving, and searching capabilities. When Indiana first past the bill and the Obama administration made noise about defunding them the story ran in several of the blogs or newsites I frequent. One of them had a breakdown of the applicable law with quotes. Most of the rest referenced the applicable law. (I also simply have personal and 2nd hand experiance with dealing with the state insurance in different states, it’s bizare sometimes the differences) I expect you could find ‘federal medicaid guidelines’ with a yahoo or google search though I have no idea if you’d be sifting through hundreds of pages or be able to narrow the search.
It’s extrodionarily frustrating relying on my cell for internet, I don’t get properly respond or debate so much, and there is so much I simply never comment on because I can’t get to my source material easily.
Don’t worry about it – I’ll do a bit more research – everything I’ve read has always said, well, what I stated before – but if it is regarding regulations, my guess is there is so much language and so many loopholes that it is probably darn impossible to figure out! We’ll see how all the court cases pan out – that is all that really matters.
Jespren: If you have an Android, share to Google Reader and link others to your RSS feed. Simple!