The Texas Attorney General has filed a lawsuit against Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. The lawsuit is challenging the federal government’s decision to cut the funding to the Medicaid Women’s Health Program in Texas. The decision was made after Texas chose to exclude the largest provider of women’s health care in their state from receiving any of the funding from WHP.
First, a little background about this situation. The Medicaid Women’s Health Program, (WHP), is part of the Medicaid program in Texas. The WHP provides funding for the basic preventative care that women need. It includes things like cancer screenings, reproductive health care, and birth control.
The program is for low-income women who live in Texas and who do not qualify for the state’s regular Medicaid program. More than 124,000 low-income women in Texas use WHP. The state of Texas provides about 10% of the funding for this program. The federal government provides around 90% of the funding for this program.
Planned Parenthood is the leading sexual and reproductive health care provider in the United States. It is the largest provider of women’s health care to low-income women who live in the state of Texas.
Recently, the state of Texas created a law that was specifically designed to prevent Planned Parenthood from receiving any of the funding from the WHP. The law states that funding from the WHP cannot go to “affiliates of abortion providers”.
Planned Parenthood is the only group that is named in the wording of this law. It is worth noting the there already are laws that prevent “taxpayer money” from being used to cover abortions. Many people feel that this Texas law is intended to make a political statement.
The Secretary of Health and Human Services, Kathleen Sebelius, has officially stated that federal funding for the Medicaid Women’s Health Program in Texas has now ended. Typically, when a state chooses to greatly reduce the scope of a program that is receiving funding from the federal government, it results in a change to that funding.
In response to the funding cut, the state of Texas has filed a lawsuit against Secretary of Health and Human Services, Kathleen Sebelius. The lawsuit was filed by Texas Attorney General Greg Abbot, who is a Republican.
The Attorney General claims that the Health and Human Services agency acted illegally, “and in a manner that was arbitrary and capricious” when it terminated the funding for the Texas Women’s Health Program. He also claims that the funding cut “violates the Constitution of the United States by seeking to commandeer and coerce the states’ lawmaking processes into awarding taxpayer subsidies to elective abortion providers”. The Texas Attorney General wants a judge to declare that Texas can place restrictions on abortion funding.
Image by Calsidyrose on Flickr