Planned Parenthood ‘defunding' threatens women's health beyond abortion
Not only will many Americans lose access to abortion care if those clinics close, but millions of people treated by the provider may delay or go without primary health care.
'It's going to pretty devastating if that happens,' said Nisha Verma, senior adviser of reproductive health policy and advocacy at the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.
'The health care system is already struggling to take care of patients.'
A provision in the massive policy and spending package signed on July 4 bans health care providers who perform abortions and receive more than $800,000 in federal reimbursements from getting Medicaid funding for one year.
Planned Parenthood sued the Trump administration this week over the measure, arguing that its clinics make up most of the impacted entities. A federal judge approved its request to temporarily pause the Medicaid funding cut for two weeks.
A spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) declined to comment on the lawsuit.
Massachusetts District Judge Indira Talwani, who issued the injunction, will hear arguments on July 21 on whether to extend the pause further.
Planned Parenthood officials argue that if Medicaid funding is withheld, the resulting elimination of health care services, staff layoffs and health center closures will 'dire and compounding' consequences on the nation's public health, according to the lawsuit.
Most of its Medicaid reimbursements are for health care services unrelated to abortion,since the procedure is covered by the joint state and federal program under limited circumstances like cases of rape, incest or if the pregnancy endangers the life of the pregnant person.
Planned Parenthood has offered sexual and reproductive health care services since its founding in 1916 and sees more than 2 million people a year throughout its nearly 600 clinics across the U.S., according to an analysis from the health care policy nonprofit KFF. Those services include cancer screenings, sexually transmitted infection testing and treatment and 'well-woman exams,' which are general annual physical exams that take reproductive health into account.
If Medicaid reimbursements are banned for a year, what will suffer is its clinics' ability to provide preventative and primary health care procedures, Planned Parenthood officials said, which will shake the country's primary care landscape.
'It's going to exacerbate the chaos of the fragile reproductive health care infrastructure [and] disrupt access to care like birth control screenings, cancer screenings and other important and essential preventative sexual and reproductive health care services,' said Karen Stone, vice president of public policy and government relations at Planned Parenthood.
In many communities, particularly in rural areas, Planned Parenthood member clinics are the only place where Americans with Medicaid can receive sexual and reproductive health care.
If those clinics disappear, it's unclear where those patients would turn for care.
Stephvonne Steele, a 25-year-old eligibility specialist in Florida, knows firsthand how essential Planned Parenthood clinics are in some communities.
Steele needed to see a gynecologist for a yeast infection in 2020 and when she called a doctor's office, she was told she could not be seen for months. The infection worsened to the point where she stopped being able to sleep, and she turned to her nearest Planned Parenthood clinic, which booked an appointment for her to see a provider within 24 hours.
'I would have been in trouble without being able to go there,' she said.
Even if there are other providers nearby, that does not mean that they will be able to accommodate the influx of patients that once used to rely on Planned Parenthood, said Alina Salganicoff, senior vice president and director of women's health policy.
Many private OB-GYN offices, for example, do not take Medicaid due to the program's low reimbursement rate. And like Steele, many Americans struggle with long wait times for doctors' appointments, in part, due to a growing physician shortage.
The U.S. is facing increasing shortages of both primary care physicians and obstetricians and gynecologists. The Association of American Medical Colleges anticipates the country will have a shortage of 20,200 to 40,400 primary care physicians by 2036.
And about 3,000 fewer OB-GYNS will be practicing in the U.S. by 2030, according to a 2021 report from HHS.
One option for Medicaid patients is to visit a federally qualified health care center (FQHC), which is a community-based health care provider that receives federal funding to provide primary care.
But FQHCs, Verma said, are not equipped to serve the volume of patients that Planned Parenthood does.
Planned Parenthood health centers served 1.6 million — or 33 percent — of the 4.7 million people looking for contraception care in 2020, according to an analysis from the Guttmacher Institute.
FQHCs would need to increase their capacity by 56 percent — or by an extra 1 million patients — to meet the need for contraception care alone met by Planned Parenthood, the analysis found.
Delaying preventative care like cancer screenings or avoiding emergent care like STI treatment is going to make Americans sicker, Verma stressed. Conditions like cervical cancer can be prevented with regular pap smears, and many STIs, if left untreated, can cause serious health problems like infertility, organ damage, or even death.
She predicts that if more Planned Parenthood clinics close, more Americans will be stranded in 'health care deserts' and suffer more progressive diseases.
'Some people don't really realize how many people go to Planned Parenthood for some of their routine care,' Verma said.
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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Los Angeles Times
18 minutes ago
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NBC News
19 minutes ago
- NBC News
The next big health care fight that's splitting Republicans: From the Politics Desk
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NBC News
19 minutes ago
- NBC News
A global HIV/AIDS program that saved millions of lives faces cuts under the Trump administration
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The State Department official also said, 'It doesn't mean that the United States has to pay for every single thing around the world." "A lot of these countries, they've graduated to the point where their HIV rates are low enough and their economy is healthy enough that they can continue to pay for some of these things. We can get in, make positive change and then get out rather than paying forever so that every sex worker in Africa has PrEP," the official said, referring to HIV medication. Deputy Secretary of State for Management and Resources Michael Rigas testified to Congress last week that, overall, in the administration's budget request for the next fiscal year there is a 54% cut in PEPFAR's administrative, nondirect care funds. That is in addition to a 15% cut in the department's budget request for direct care in the same budget request. A global health staff of 700 people plus contractors in the field prior to President Donald Trump taking office has been reduced to 80 people after recent firings. Last month, White House budget director Russell Vought told a Senate committee, without providing evidence, that PEPFAR spent $9.3 million 'to advise Russian doctors on how to perform abortions and gender analysis.' Democratic Sen. Chris Coons of Delaware, a senior member of the Foreign Relations Committee and former chairman of the Africa Subcommittee, told NBC News that PEPFAR had always planned to get countries that had developed their own hospitals and health care systems, such as South Africa, to take over funding the program by 2030. According to Coons, that transition is already underway. But he and other critics of the current budget cuts said that it is not possible in low-income conflict zones, such as South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Haiti, to replace the U.S program anytime soon. Still, according to a draft planning memo reported by The New York Times, the State Department would shut down U.S. support in Botswana, Namibia, South Africa and Vietnam within two years. Nations with high HIV infection rates, including Kenya, Zimbabwe and Angola, would get three to four years, the Times reported, while lower-income countries would get up to eight years under the proposal. NBC News has not viewed the draft plan and a State Department official told NBC News it has not been finalized. Dr. Robert Black, an epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, who evaluated PEPFAR for Congress, told NBC News, 'I think two years for a number of countries, for many countries in Africa, would be too short,' adding, 'I just can't imagine two years would be an effective transition.' Black also said maintaining prevention is 'clearly important" and that withdrawing funding for prevention, which is contemplated under the Trump plan, would increase HIV rates and expand the burden. Rubio, who as a senator supported PEPFAR and other foreign aid, defended $20 billion in overall proposed budget cuts to the Senate Foreign Relations committee in May, citing 'duplicative, wasteful and ideologically driven programs.' Asked last week about the PEPFAR cuts, former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who served in the Bush administration when PEPFAR was launched, told NBC News at the Aspen Security Forum, 'I do think PEPFAR is going to not only survive, I think it's going to be just fine. ... There will be some scaling back, and it's probably worth it to take a look at focusing on what we really need to focus on. We've become pretty dispersed and diffuse in the kinds of programs that we were running.' But, she added, 'what makes America different as a great power is that we have not led just with power, but we've also led with principle.' Later at the conference, Rice said launching PEPFAR was 'the proudest moment' in all of her government service. But she added that the U.S. also wants to build other countries' capacity and health care systems to sustain themselves. Former President Bush, in rare criticism of Trump's policies, praised fired foreign aid workers in a video last month. He told the State Department employees who had been fired, 'You've shown the great strength of America through your work, and that is our good heart.' Citing PEPFAR'S lifesaving work, Bush said, 'Is it in our interest that 25 million people who would have died, now live? I think it is. On behalf of a grateful nation, thank you for your hard work, and God bless you.' In a video, Bono told the foreign aid staff in verse, 'They called you crooks — when you were the best of us, there for the rest of us. And don't think any less of us, when politics makes a mess of us. It's not left-wing rhetoric to feed the hungry, heal the sick. If this isn't murder. I don't know what is.'
