Texas defies Obama: Defunds Planned Parenthood despite threats of Medicaid cut-off
Will President Obama choose Planned Parenthood over poor women in the Lone Star State? An old fashioned Western showdown looms.
From The Texas Tribune, February 23:
If there was any hope that the state was seeking a compromise with the federal government over Texas’ Women’s Health Program, it’s fading fast.
At the direction of lawmakers and Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, the Texas Health and Human Services commissioner signed a rule on Thursday that formally bans Planned Parenthood clinics and other “affiliates of abortion providers” from participating in the program – something the Obama administration has said is a deal-breaker for the nearly $40 million-per-year state-federal Medicaid program.
The rule, signed by Commissioner Tom Suehs on Thursday, takes effect March 14.
“Under federal law, states administer Medicaid and have the right to set the criteria for providers in the program. That is what Texas is doing,” said Stephanie Goodman, a spokeswoman for the agency. “We have a state law that our Attorney General says is constitutional, and it clearly bans abortion providers from taking part in the Women’s Health Program. We can’t violate a perfectly valid state law just to appease Washington. We hope CMS will reverse its position and allow the program to continue.”
Unless some last-minute agreement is brokered, the program, which receives $9 in federal funds for every $1 in state funds, will be either phased out or cut off by the end of March. At least 130,000 poor Texas women will lose access to cancer screenings, well-woman exams and contraception.
“No one’s politics should interfere with a woman’s access to health care,” said Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast President and CEO Peter J. Durkin. “It is shameful that Governor Perry and Commissioner Suehs continue to politicize lifesaving breast cancer screenings and birth control access for low-income women.”
Republican lawmakers worked overtime last legislative session to design language that would keep any Planned Parenthood-affiliated clinics from receiving state family planning and women’s health dollars, despite the fact that taxpayer-funded clinics may not perform abortions. They got the backing of Abbott, who said their efforts were legal, and gave the state’s health commissioner the go-ahead to implement the new language.
But when Texas was faced with renewing the Women’s Health Program this year, officials with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services said the state’s plans violated the Social Security Act. They gave the program a three-month extension, but said they had no intention of renewing if Planned Parenthood, which provides 44% of the program’s services, was blacklisted.
The stalemate appears unbreakable – Republican lawmakers have made clear they’d rather forgo the program and the federal money than allow Planned Parenthood to participate.
“The Legislature has spoken. The attorney general has said it is constitutional. The Commissioner has signed the rule,” said Kyleen Wright, president of the Texas for Life Coalition. “If Planned Parenthood cared as much about affordable health care for women as they say, they would get out of the way so that the program could continue.”
BTW, Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast is being sued by a former employee for allegedly bilking millions of dollars from the government.
Planned Parenthood Federation of America CEO Cecile Richards, who can’t catch a break these days from having to defend her abortion biz against well-deserved attacks, added her two cents:
“Even as more than one quarter of Texas women are uninsured, and women in Texas have the third highest rate of cervical cancer in the country, Governor Perry is determined to make a bad situation worse for women in the state of Texas,” said Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America. “Texas would rather throw health care for hundreds of thousands of women overboard than allow Planned Parenthood to provide health care like breast and cervical cancer screenings, birth control and STD prevention through the public health programs.”
Cervical cancer is primarily caused by the Human papillomavirus, an incurable STD.
And if women stopped getting abortions and taking artificial steroids (birth control pills), breast cancer would decrease dramatically.
Planned Parenthood pimps all it claims to cure.

I love how PP pretends that anyone opposed to them wants to “take away BC and breast cancer screenings from low-income women”. Like abortion has nothing to do with it.
+1 for Texas. They’re absolutely within their rights. I wish more people would stand up and denounce the federal government’s bad habit of overstepping their authority. The Founding Fathers would be appalled at how complacent Americans have become and how bloated and unconstitutional our federal gov’t has become.
“Cervical cancer is primarily caused by the Human papillomavirus, an incurable STD.”
So I guess you feel they deserve to die?
Let me get this straight.
Texas says NO to PP funding.
Obama admin says, If you get rid of PP, we’ll get rid of the rest of your Medicaid funding so NO ONE gets any low cost health care from the fed!
…Remind me again why -we’re- the ones who don’t care about women’s health?
Reality- no one is saying women deserve to die, but thanks for your insight into one line of the article.
Actually, I think the article was implying that PP (with it’s touting of casual sex and abortion) could be considered to be promoting risky behaviors that would LEAD to things like STDs, abortion etc, which lead to cervical cancer (and in quite a few studies) breast cancer.
Hailee, TX has always known what the rules are for Medicaid funding, which existed long before Obama was elected. They’ve chosen to break the rules, and don’t care if they lose all funding because of it. Obviously pro-lifers don’t care about women’s health.
Hailee, Planned Parenthood didn’t invent sex or STDs. Blaming PP for “risky behaviors” is like blaming seat belts for car accidents.
Kudos to Texans for their leadership for Life. Governor Rick Perry and Gregg Abbott are excellent role models for other Pro-Life politicians. I think we should “All be Texans” and pray that they win this political disagreement.
Planned Parenthood has proved to the Texans their worth. The facts speak for themselves. Society has dismally failed all its citizens by not teaching women the truth. The best way to keep woman healthy is to teach what we already know to be true and that is abstinence until marriage between one man and one woman who remain monogamous is the best way to live. We cannot afford to support through taxes any other lifestyle. Planned Parenthood has profited by failing to teach what woman need to know to remain healthy. Unfortunately it has taken over forty years for taxpayers to wake up to that fact. Unfortunately we have made “illness care” more profitable than “preventive care”. In this day and age everyone has access to credible health care information. It is the responsibility of every citizen and family to learn how to stay well. Those who fail, will not be abandaned.
Let me get this straight:
– Texas taxpayers send their income tax dollars to Washington.
– Obama is giving some of the money back to the Texas legislature for promoting Women’s Health.
– And Obama is insisting that he has the authority to demand Texas to give that money to Planned Parenthood.
– But Texas doesn’t want to give the money to abortion providers and their affiliates.
– Texas has set up legal criteria to exclude abortion providers.
– So Obama is threatening to hold the money hostage, threatening the healthcare of hundreds of thousands of women.
It seems that this is a battle that every state should fight — even if I liked Planned Parenthood or the work that they do. If an entity wants to service the State and its citizens, it needs to satisfy the State. If PP’s mission (casual sex and abortion) is contrary to the state’s mission (life and families), then PP shouldn’t have recourse to a bully from Washington.
Can’t have it both ways. You cannot claim Perry does not care about women and cancer when he pushed so strongly for the Gardasil vaccine, this simply has to do with abortion providers. Although Perry backed down from making it a mandate, from what I can tell he still very strongly believes in the use of Gardasil to avoid HPV and cervical cancer.
BRING IT ON!!
:)
Hmmm. I had HPV which led to cervical cancer and treatments. Have been given the all clear for years.
But Reality must know better. :)
THANK YOU, DEL!
Del says:
February 24, 2012 at 9:43 am
Let me get this straight:
– Texas taxpayers send their income tax dollars to Washington.
– Obama is giving some of the money back to the Texas legislature for promoting Women’s Health.
– And Obama is insisting that he has the authority to demand Texas to give that money to Planned Parenthood.
– But Texas doesn’t want to give the money to abortion providers and their affiliates.
– Texas has set up legal criteria to exclude abortion providers.
– So Obama is threatening to hold the money hostage, threatening the healthcare of hundreds of thousands of women.
You took the words out of my mouth. I think the language we use often muddies the waters. Federal money? The federal government does not make/earn any $$. It collects it from the people, you know, the ones from whose consent the govt purportedly derives its power?
I am sure Obama & co. wouldn’t mind if all the Texans (and all military with Texas as their home state) having those taxes taken out of their checks opted to have their funds handled on a local level?
If you take the money from Texans for one purpose, and then refuse to redistribute it for that program unless they kowtow to you and your political bed buddies (PP), you have no legitimacy.
As for the Cecile Richards quote, OBAMA would rather throw health care for hundreds of thousands of women overboard than FORBID Planned Parenthood to dip her blood-stained, pilfering hands in the pot. FIFY.
Texans have spoken, through our constitutionally legal legislative process. WE do not want abortion providers in our great state to be paid with taxpayer dollars. WE don’t want our federal tax dollars used for abortion ANYWHERE, but that is another story. We don’t hate women; we prefer they go somewhere to get a REAL screening with actual medical equipment like an ultrasound and from a real doctor, like in a hospital, rather than to an abortion mill. What a revolutionary idea, care at a hospital by a licensed physician rather than a by-the-hour employee. We want women to get the best care, not care from an organization that promotes promiscuity in our schools to reinforce their abortion business.
Texans don’t hate women, abortionists hate women, murdering thousands of them annually. Planned Parenthood hates women, putting it’s abortion practice above women’s health when there’s a direct correlation between abortion and breast cancer, not to mention the proven emotional scarring that follows abortion. What post-abort mental care does PP provide, I ask you … NONE, because they would have to admit a correlation between their barbaric practice and women’s emotional health concerns.
THAT’s the truth, and we offer the real solution: defund the abortion mill. If the Obama administration cuts funding to women the way they did to Texas education, then THEY hate Texas women and children, not Texans.
Real solutions: that’s the way we do it in Texas.
:) Long live the Lone Star State!
(BTW: Reality is an habitual troll; feed him at your own risk.)
Proud to be a Texan today! Hold your ground, Tex! :)
Reality, to clarify the analogy you use, PP doesn’t just provide seatbelts, it encourages teens to drive 55 mph , but in freezing rain while eating, talking on a cell phone, listening to the stereo full blast, with a car full of friends all chatting and distracting the driver. While not one of those activities in and of itself is illegal, they are all unsafe habits that can lead to accidents. So as accidents increase, to use your analogy, PP then says, “See we need to have more money to buy seatbelts since there are so many accidents.” PP then turns around and says, “Now that teens are wearing seatbelts, they can drive in an unsafe manner,” leading to more accidents, which gets PP more money, and the cycle continues.
The American Principles Project (APP) Wednesday criticized the Obama administration for allowing the elimination of $600 million for Community Health Centers while protecting funding for Planned Parenthood as part of last week’s budget deal agreed to by Congress and the White House.
Touting Planned Parenthood as a key women’s health-care provider, Democrats held firm to their promise not to allow cuts to the nation’s largest abortion provider. Community Health Centers, which do not perform abortions, provide health services to the needy — including mammograms and pre- and post-natal care.
According to the American Principles Project last year Community Health Centers performed 320,000 mammograms while Planned Parenthood did none.
“Coating its ideology in flowery language about women’s health and alleged Republican mean-spiritedness, liberal Democrats refused to cut one dime out of Planned Parenthood’s plump federal purse during the budget debate,” said the president of APP, Frank Cannon. “All the while a sharp knife was being taken to community health centers that actually perform full-scale exams for the needy. These health centers offer prenatal care to women and their babies – 480,000 times in 2009 alone. Planned Parenthood? Their 850 clinics average less than one prenatal visit a month, in other words, it’s not their line of work.”
Following passage of the stimulus in 2009, at Unity’s Upper Cardozo Health Center in Washington, D.C., First Lady Michelle Obama praised the allocation of $851 million in grants to Community Health Centers across the country and explained their indispensability to the less fortunate.
“Community Health Centers provide care to the Americans who need it most and their work has never been more important,” said Obama. “These grants will help Unity’s Upper Cardozo and thousands of centers across the country expand and serve more Americans who simply can’t afford insurance coverage anymore.“
According to the White House these health centers serve more than 17 million patients a year.
Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2011/04/13/white-house-protects-abortion-provider-allows-cuts-to-community-health-centers/#ixzz1nJjthR1p
So, who wants to tell those 17 million people why you getting your abortions and bc is more important? Is anyone else getting sick of libs trying to pass off abortion and bc as the only health care this nation needs or is interested in protecting? Again, when’s the last time you took your sick child to PP? Anything not in line with one-choice Obamacare will be summarily trampled underfoot-very prochoice, isn’t it? As always, the burden for their taxpayer funded libidos will fall on those who can least afford it. Libs could care less about the poor, except as a means to an end.
I have a compromise for you President Obama. If you don’t want to give us back our Medicaid dollars to provide care for the poor as we see fit under the law, then I propose a solution. YOU give Texas a permanent exemption from the Medicaid portion of payroll taxes and then Texas can collect that money at state and/or local levels to give to REAL hospitals instead of to your favorite abortion mill. If you can’t abide by our legal interpretation of the law, then you can wash your hands of the whole affair and we can still serve the poor in our state.
Actually, Reality, I wasn’t blaming PP for STDs, etc. I was simply saying they promote behaviors that may lead to such things. A better analogy would be, “Cars get into accidents. You drive a car. Therefore, you are more at risk for an accident.” not blaming, simply stating correlations betwee the behaviors planned parenthood promotes and what could happen as a result.
Also, just because TX knew the “rules” of funding doesn’t mean that they arent allowed to pursue change of the rules. That’s why the states are given power- so that each state can make choices that benefit them and their citizens in the best ways. States rights allow the further spread of democracy. Which, apparently, the fed does not respect.
reality, even if you’re right about the medicaid rules, would any other administration enforce them so stringently? I can’t imagine many other presidents entering such a showdown over PP.
Just another method of Dem’s money laundering. As the unions become less lucrative because of job losses, school districts going bankrupt, and loss of manufacturing jobs, they’ll shift to other avenues to spread the taxpayer’s wealth. Now it’s through the healthcare system. More money for PP, none for thee.
I’m glad someone has the strength and fortitude to go against the big bad Federal Government in matters that are at the best interest of the citizens of that state. I like that quote from Cecile Richards, like she really cares about women.
The cycle of money from taxpayers to Planned Parenthood to Obama’s campaign has turned into an oroburos, a serpent devouring it’s own tail. Time to chop that serpent and free our tax money, in all states, to be used in community health centers that actually do help people. Our local county clinic provides all health services to women, men, and children, including flu shots, emergency care for broken bones, diabetes care, and more.
Planned Parenthood is a bloated serpent, using up money and resources and funneling some of that money back to the politicians who court them. Wake up, states, time to cut off that serpent’s money!!
Thankfully, Texas has an economy strong enough (last I heard, the economy of the state was, on its own, the fourteenth strongest in the world, or thereabouts) to actually do something like this. And more power to ’em. Now I suppose we’ll find out if Obama really does plan to hold Medicaid hostage unless the abortions keep going.
Can it please be noted that the ‘reality’ who has posted above is not me.
I’m the long-term visitor/troll/whatever ‘Reality’.
Someone is posting under my name but with a lower case ‘r’.
Is mods able to verify this?
Good to hear, Reality. I knew you used an uppercase R.
Yes, Texas knows the rules for medicaid, the ones that specify the STATE can set whatever guidelines it wants to accept or deny groups to participate in it’s medicaid program. Like some states allow midwives, others don’t. Some cover naturopathic doctors, others don’t, some sates allow chiropractic care, some don’t. It’s the federal government that is ignoring the rules. States have every legal right to exclude abortion provider (or providers of liposuction or rhinoplasty or home birth obs, or doctors who don’t carry insurance etc etc etc).
When little New Hampshire decided to defund Planned Parenthood in this way, Obama bypassed the New Hampshire Legislature and mailed the Federal checks straight to Planned Parenthood.
I wish we knew what he has up his sleeve this time. Perhaps this is part of his overall plan to paint Republicans as “banning contraception.”
I wish we knew what Obama’s goal is. He clearly does not care about healthcare for the poor — holding all of Medicaid hostage just to ensure that PP gets paid.
Del,
They were willing to vote against Obamacare if it incuded ‘Hyde-like” language. Planned Barrenhood and abortion funding has always has been Obama’s #1 concern.
Jim Texan
Another way to call their bluff is to ask them why they don’t allow women to decide for themselves what they want to do with their health care dollars.
God bless New Hampshire!
myrtle! Glad to “see” you! You haven’t been around for awhile. ;)
It is illogical to fund any entity to solve a problem when it profits more from the failures of its proferred/preferred ‘solution’ than it does from it’s success.
Your body, your choice, your responsibility,
YOU pay.
Keep your uterus out of my wallet.
SEX causes pregnancy.
Gals get pregnant.
Control yourself.
Deal with it.
Be chaste.
STD bad.
I have a friend who was bow hunting.
A doe emerged from the woods with a mature buck close behind.
The doe stopped.
The buck mounted.
My friends arrow found its mark and bambi fell over dead.
The doe never moved.
In a few a moments a young spike mounted the doe and completed what the deceased buck had begun.
Animals are slaves to their instincts.
Men and women are not.
It is illogical to fund any entity to solve a problem when it profits more from the failures of its proferred/preferred ‘solution’ than it does from it’s success.”
KtB, from your 11:24 post, I like this line as it sums up how backwards it is to fund PP.
There is an inaccurate statement from Stanek where she says HPV is an incurable STD and the cause of cervical cancer. According to the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology, most cases of human papiloma infections will go away on their own within 18 months or so.
Finally, the States are getting some guts. What about the 10th Amendment to the US Constitution? This is for STATES to decide, not the Federal government.
It’s so backwards. Why does the federal gov’t need to give states these grants in the first place? Oh, because they want more control over our tax dollars. I say Texas and every other state petitions the fed for lower federal taxes, raises their state tax just enough, and take care of Medicaid from the state level.
The fed will have less power over what states do with money, and the fed tax rate would go down. Although states taxes would go up, it should balance out. More power to the people!
I’m a Texan (fourth generation) and proud of it! I’m also proud of the fact that Texas and Texans have a mind of their own and a strong, fighting spirit when our rights are being trampled on by the Feds or anyone else. I applaude this new ruling that bans the baby killers at PP or any other abortion provider from operating in Texas! It’s past time that we rid our state of this curse. An, make no mistake about it, it’s NOT about “women’s health”, it’s about the barbaric slaughter of the unborn, or as the the libs like to refer to as…”women’s reproductive health.” That’s nothing more than liberal talking points, instead of saying “abortion,” they like to sugar coat muder and make it sound like conservatives don’t care about women! Folks, Obama couldn’t care less about ”women’s health” or the lives of the unborn. After all, as an Illinois Senator, he supported and voted for infanticide. The only thing Obama cares about is the millions of dollars of “blood money” that he receives from Planned Parenthood so he can get reelected and millions more babies can be slaughtered which in turn fills PP coffders! He and PP have an unholy alliance and it’s all about greed, money and power, not about the “health of women” or the lives of the unborn who are the most innocent of all. I say GO TEXAS!! I’m behind you 100% on this! And, I pray that other states will follow suit and tell PP and Obama to GET OUT of their states as well!
I’m a Texan (fourth generation) and proud of it! I’m also proud of the fact that Texas and Texans have a mind of their own and a strong, fighting spirit when our rights are being trampled on by the Feds or anyone else.
Seventh generation Texan here, and I have always been proud of Texas‘ independence and spirit. What does disturb me, however, is the amount of largess we’re expected to cheerfully cough up to support an enormous illegal immigrant population. I absolutely do not want to pay for things that are not my responsibility, be it contraceptives OR to support a family that has flouted our immigration laws. If only we could be so bold in ALL aspects of states’ rights.