Latest news with #HouseCommitteeonEnergyandCommerce
Associated Press
27-05-2025
- Business
- Associated Press
Establishing Strong Roots of Grid Security for the Sustainable Growth of AI
As we move into May, my garden in Austin Texas is at its best, the Japanese Maple is flourishing, and the roses and lantana are giving pops of color. The garden benefits from the mild temperatures and gentler spring conditions to allow plants to establish strong roots before the summer heat arrives. I find myself wondering if there's an AI tool that would help me keep some of my more challenging plants alive before the weather machine turns to 'broil'. This takes me back to my day job, which includes working with energy grid operators to help build the strong roots of cyber security. April has been an eventful month for the world's energy grids, let's look at some of the key developments. In the U.S., the House Committee on Energy and Commerce heard from former Google CEO Eric Schmidt about the impact and reliance of AI on the energy grid. Schmidt told Congress 'Many people project demand for our industry will go from 3 percent to 9 percent of total generation, an additional 29 gigawatts by 2027 and 67 more gigawatts by 2030, this is at a scale I have never seen in my life in terms of energy planning.' 'If China comes to superintelligence first, it changes the dynamic of power globally, in ways that we have no way of understanding or predicting.' AI's dependence on the energy grid is clear and if the US cannot keep up with power needs, other countries like China could gain a competitive edge. The energy requirements of data centers are predicted to skyrocket, especially with more advanced and power-hungry systems on the way. The energy grid is being stretched beyond its limits and AI could push up energy prices and create shortages. The energy grid is essential to powering the boom in AI and makes it a prime target for threat actors seeking to destabilize AI leadership or dependent critical systems. In April we also saw massive blackouts across Spain, Portugal and parts of France that halted public transportation, banking cashpoints and internet connectivity, in one of Europe's biggest ever power system collapses. Spain, Europe's fourth-largest economy had no electricity, Red Eléctrica de España, the grid operator, is working to figure out what led to this worst-case scenario, a system completely devoid of energy. Whatever the cause, it is an admonitory tale of the importance of a resilient energy grid. Although some have ruled out cyberattacks as the cause of the recent blackouts, attacks in the sector are growing. Energy systems are increasingly dependent on IT at every stage of the supply chain-generation, transmission, and distribution- all of which must be protected. The need to strengthen grid security has become more urgent since the invasion of Ukraine. Over the course of a series of blogs we will explore how Keysight is helping grid operators and manufacturers rise to the challenge of improving power generation and cybersecurity while maintaining agility and regulatory compliance. We will discuss the latest trends and how operators can stay ahead of attackers. You will see coverage of IoT, OT and device security, cloud, and network security, as well as the importance of resilient time in the energy grid. In today's blog we will focus on the increasing susceptibility of AI to the hidden threats in IoT/OT and devices in the energy sector. AI's demand for electricity The world's data centers are using ever more electricity, the International Energy Agency (IEA) estimates that global electricity usage by data centers will double in just four years, increasing from 460 terawatt hours of electricity in 2022 to 1,000 terawatt hours annually by 2026. This demand is roughly equivalent to the total electricity consumption of Japan. With governments around the world announcing multi-billion-dollar investments in AI, data center electricity consumption is expected to grow at a rapid pace as AI applications begin to penetrate the market. Goldman Sachs Research estimates that data center power demand will grow by 160% by 2030. Currently, data centers globally consume 1-2% of overall power, but this percentage will likely double to 3-4% by the end of the decade. The overall increase in data center power consumption from AI is expected to be roughly 200TWh/year between 2023 and 2028, with AI representing about 19% of total datacenter power demand. This heightens the dependence as well as the risk profile of the energy systems that support the AI datacenters and applications, making them targets for cyberattack. It is also worth highlighting the additional dependency on water consumption. Data centers use fresh mains water, rather than surface water, so that the pipes, pumps, and heat exchangers used to cool racks of servers do not get clogged up with contaminants. Microsoft's global water use soared by 34% while it was developing its initial AI tools, and a data center cluster in Iowa used 6% of the district's water supply in one month during the training of OpenAI's GPT-4. Therefore, cyber-attacks impacting water supply to the datacenter operations may also be of concern. The energy sector is a major target for cyberattack The energy grid faces persistent threats from cyber criminals and hostile states such as Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea exploiting ransomware, AI, and advanced intrusion tools. State-linked cyber groups increasingly target industrial control systems pivotal to energy infrastructure. There are major areas of concern in the energy supply chain, where vulnerabilities exist in interconnected systems, for example GNSS and GPS for timing, and the targeting of subsea cables. In 2021 the Colonial Pipeline Ransomware attack disabled its IT computer systems resulting in fuel shortages and panic buying in affected states. In 2022 a Russian attack on satellites knocked out communications and control of thousands of wind turbines in Ukraine. In 2023 the China-linked group, RedEcho, attacked India's power sector during border tension. According to the E-ISAC, Electricity Information Sharing and Analysis Center, the nation state actors targeting the US energy sector in 2024 included Volt Typhoon, Salt Typhoon, Lemon Sandstorm/UNC757, APT 29 – Midnight Blizzard and GRU Unit 29155. Last year Volt Typhoon, a China state-sponsored threat actor, targeted energy, transportation, and water sectors in the US and Canada. Its campaigns affected industrial sectors including Electricity Power Generation, Transmission and Distribution. Chinese hackers were active in Massachusetts' Littleton Electric Light & Water Departments (LELWD) for over 300 days without detection. We have seen CyberArmyofRussia_Reborn (CARR) confirm attacks on US water and energy facilities. Hunt3r Kill3rs targeted internet exposed OT/ICS devices in the US, Europe, and Israel. And just in the last couple of days I saw a new headline about a cyberattack against a Canadian operator, Nova Scotia Power. In addition to the IT-focused attacks such as Colonial Pipeline which have downstream impacts on industrial control systems (ICS), there has also been an increase in ICS-targeting malware intentionally designed for adverse effects on operational technology (OT) environments. FrostyGoop Malware is an ICS-specific malware tracked by Dragos. It interacts with ICS devices over Modbus TCP/502, a standard ICS protocol used worldwide. It is undetectable by common antivirus software and was used in Ukraine heating outages in 2024. Legislation and proactive cyber security testing Laws like the Network and Information Systems (NIS) Regulations and EO 13636 require enhanced resilience in critical sectors, including energy. The cyberattacks in the US and elsewhere are why regulators like Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) and North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) are updating their requirements, to ensure power companies are preparing for the latest threats. FERC has begun to take steps to increase stricter cyber security controls for grid and power providers. FERC 887 and NERC CIP 003-9 are new regulations that impose stricter requirements on electric utilities for internal network security monitoring and remote access. The costs of non-compliance can be significant. Back in 2019 NERC fined Duke Energy $10 million for cybersecurity failings relating to the CIP (critical infrastructure protection) compliance program. How Keysight can help With cyberattacks in the energy sector on the rise it is crucial to implement proactive security measures to safeguard your infrastructure and mitigate potential risks. It is important to validate new devices, networks, application workloads and traffic mixes. Our security testing solutions replicate your environment and support a wide range of protocols and applications with real-world test scenarios. Keysight can help you to validate and refine your security posture, improving resilience to cyberattacks and ensuring adherence to cyber security requirements. To safeguard your infrastructure Keysight helps you in several ways including awareness and training, configuration management, incident response, risk assessment, security assessment, access control, identification, and authentication, as well as system and communications protection. Let us explore further how Keysight can help you with device and IoT security. Spotlight: Device and IoT security in the energy sector As the energy sector becomes increasingly connected, communications networks will include both terrestrial and non-terrestrial networks which open up additional attack vectors. Back in 2022, Starlink terminals were hacked using voltage fault injection and side channel attacks to gain access to the Starlink network. Keysight can conduct security assessments of devices connected to the energy grid, including validation of Smart Meters to the relevant Common Criteria Protection Profile. We analyze the hardware (debug and test interfaces and memories), software design, secure boot process, OS (Linux, Android, RTOS), as well as application security and perform targeted reviews to understand the security of your device. We can also analyze the security of the chipsets by considering logical, fault injection and side-channel threats, as well as the immutable firmware on the chips and the overall architecture. Upgrades, especially of production OT devices, can be very expensive. Do you really want to take a substation down because you need to upgrade the firmware to fix a security flaw? This is why it is so important to do extensive pre-deployment testing of smart inverters, relays, phasors, and other operational devices so you can fix as many problems as possible early. It is also important to maintain an SBOM of deployed devices so that you can get immediate notification if a vulnerability is discovered in a library utilized in a device's firmware so that it can be remedied or mitigated before hackers can exploit it. With a long history in the energy sector, Keysight is dedicated to safeguarding critical national energy systems. You can read more about how we keep energy grids safe on our Grid Modernization page. Keysight is your partner for energy cyber security. Visit 3BL Media to see more multimedia and stories from Keysight Technologies
Yahoo
20-05-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
‘Everyone should be alarmed': Older adults at high risk under Medicaid cuts, experts say
CHEYENNE — 'This is a critical time in the fight to protect health care access and affordability for everyone.' That's what Healthy Wyoming Interim Executive Director Jenn Lowe said during a webinar Thursday night, as she and other health care experts detailed the risk potential Medicaid cuts pose to hospitals, nursing homes and Wyomingites. 'Wyoming residents already face among the highest health care costs in the country,' Lowe said. 'By cutting Medicaid funding, Congress is forcing providers to increase their costs, driving up the price of health care for all.' The House Committee on Energy and Commerce passed a reconciliation bill last week, with a 30-24 vote, that proposes $715 billion in cuts to Medicaid. The Kaiser Family Foundation estimates at least 13.7 million people across the country will become uninsured by 2034 under the proposed changes, according to estimates from the Congressional Budget Office. The webinar was hosted by Healthy Wyoming and Better Wyoming. A panel of health experts explained how Medicaid cuts would impact different areas of the state's health care industry. However, one panelist was missing. Casper resident Angela 'Angie' Dax was a longtime advocate for Medicaid expansion in the Equality State. She was one of thousands of Wyomingites living in the Medicaid gap, unable to afford treatment for her chronic health conditions, but didn't qualify for Medicaid coverage. The gap exists because the state did not expand its Medicaid program. Dax died May 3 while in hospice care, after years of battling pulmonary hypertension, a disease that affects the heart and lungs. 'A true Medicaid expansion champion, she will be greatly missed,' Lowe said. 'But I know she would want us to keep working for the health care access that so many like her desperately need.' Nearly 63,000 Wyomingites receive insurance through Medicaid and CHIP (Children's Health Insurance Program). One in three children and one in 14 senior citizens in Wyoming fall within this population, according to Healthy Wyoming. Yet, children, vulnerable adults, people with disabilities and senior citizens stand to lose the most if major changes are made to the $900 billion federal health care program, experts said Thursday night. 'Everyone should be alarmed,' Lowe said. 'It is impossible to cut this much this fast without terminating care for millions who need it. Despite what our members of Congress are saying, these policy changes will impact Wyoming in a negative way.' Impact on older adults Over 70% of nursing homes in the state are covered by Medicaid, health experts said during Thursday's webinar. Wyoming Medicaid reimbursement rates cover 65-72% of the total cost of care, according to a December 2022 memo from the Wyoming Department of Health. Lisa Osvold, who worked in the state Department of Health's Aging Division before retiring, said two-thirds of nursing home residents rely on Medicaid. Facilities may be forced to close under the proposed Medicaid cuts, displacing dozens of older adults, she said. 'Not all older adults have family members who can become caregivers,' Osvold said. 'For those elder orphans, Medicaid-funded services aren't just supplemental, they're the entire support system.' Osvold listed three other, unique vulnerabilities in Wyoming that put older adults 'especially at risk when Medicaid funding is threatened.' First, the state's rural features create geographical barriers in access to care, she said. Older adults who can't drive rely on non-emergency medical transportation to get them to the nearest provider, which could be hours away. 'Since this service is not a mandatory service in Medicaid, my concern is that it could be reduced or eliminated totally with funding cuts,' Osvold said. 'And, as you can imagine, this would be very difficult for our older adults.' Second, Wyoming already faces a 'significant' shortage of physicians, she said. Multiple counties have zero physicians, and several others have five or fewer physicians that serve coverage areas of thousands of square miles. 'Our rural facilities operate on very thin margins as it is,' Osvold said. Even a small reduction in reimbursement 'can trigger cuts or closures.' Finally, Wyoming has one of the fastest-aging populations in the country. Currently, over 20% of the state's rural population is 65 and older. Osvold said this creates a growing demand for services. Around 90% of older adults have one or more chronic conditions, which requires ongoing care, she said. 'Many assume Medicare covers all senior needs, but it really doesn't,' Osvold said. 'It provides almost no coverage for long-term care or home-based services.' Keeping independence People with disabilities are disproportionately at risk of living at or below the federal poverty level, said Wyoming Independent Living Executive Director Amy Burns. WIL is a nonprofit with offices across the state that support people with disabilities. 'Many people with disabilities have complex medical needs while living on a fixed income,' Burns said. 'Medicaid is a crucial component of healthy living for these individuals.' Wyoming Medicaid funds home- and community-based services that serve more than 2,800 individuals who would otherwise qualify for nursing-home level care. It also funds skilled and clinical nursing assistants, home health, clinics and transportation. 'These programs provide in-home support that prevent unnecessary institutionalization in nursing homes or state hospitals,' Burns said. Medicaid waivers fund services and programs that allow these individuals to live at home and keep their sense of independence. Cuts to these services will increase the financial burden of people with disabilities who already live on a limited income and will force many to move into an institutional setting, she said. In addition, if Congress were to allow premium tax credits to expire this year, many folks — including those who work in the nonprofit sector — will face significantly higher insurance costs. Premium tax credits are a federal subsidy that make insurance more affordable on the federal health insurance marketplace. 'These are not particularly high-paying jobs. We do it because we love the work,' Burns said. 'If I were to lose my tax credit, my health care premiums for myself and two children would be 35% of my income.' Nearly 47,000 Wyomingites receive their health insurance through the federal marketplace. Out of this number, 95% of these individuals receive a premium tax credit, said Amy Spieker, who works with Laramie County Community Partnership and at Cheyenne Regional Medical Center. If Congress chooses not to extend premium tax credits, 'the average premium for Wyoming health insurance marketplace users will increase 194% in 2026,' Spieker said. 'The expiration of these tax credits will impact Wyoming small business owners,' she said.
Yahoo
19-05-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
The GOP wants work requirements for Medicaid. Here's what those rules do (and don't) accomplish.
As they work to pass a 'big beautiful bill' filled with tax cuts and spending reductions, Republicans in Congress are proposing adding work requirements to Medicaid, the $618 billion program that provides healthcare to more than 70 million low-income Americans. "When so many Americans who are truly in need rely on Medicaid for life-saving services, Washington can't afford to undermine the program further by subsidizing capable adults who choose not to work,' GOP Rep. Brett Guthrie, chairman of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce wrote in an op-ed last week. 'That's why our bill would implement sensible work requirements.' As the name implies, work requirements are rules that force people to work in order to receive a government benefit. They have been in use for decades as part of other programs, most notably cash welfare assistance, but have never been used nationally for Medicaid. Only one state, Georgia, currently has work requirements for Medicaid. Arkansas had them briefly at the end of the last decade, but the policy was struck down by the courts. The GOP's draft proposal would establish a nationwide 'community engagement requirement' that would mandate Medicaid recipients to work, volunteer, or attend school for at least 80 hours per month to maintain their benefits. It includes many exceptions that would allow pregnant women, new mothers, anyone under 19 and members of certain other groups to keep their coverage without working. Work requirements have been a popular solution to concerns about 'freeloading' in government programs since at least the 1980s. Supporters see them as a crucial step toward putting people on a path to supporting themselves and as a tool to weed out those who aren't willing to put in the effort to improve their circumstances. In the 1990s, then-President Bill Clinton signed a bill establishing nationwide work requirements for cash welfare as part of what he called 'a crusade to transform our system of welfare into a system of work; to transform a system of dependence into a system of independence.' That logic is still convincing to most Americans today. Well over half of respondents (62%) said they support work requirements for Medicaid in a poll taken earlier this year by the healthcare research group KFF. Despite how common this perception is, the overwhelming share of evidence we have from the real world suggests that work requirements don't make people more self-sufficient and create barriers that cause even those who do work to lose benefits they are eligible for. Study after study over the decades has found that work requirements — whether they're for Medicaid, food assistance or cash welfare — don't have a meaningful effect on employment. A recent government report that looked at the effects of work requirements on Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, the program more commonly known as welfare, found that after nearly three decades, the policy had 'little effect on employment' but had 'substantially reduced the number of people receiving the benefits they provide.' A different study on work requirements for food assistance, commonly known as food stamps, found similar results: Employment rates weren't affected, but hundreds of thousands of people lost access to support they relied on to eat. Medicaid work requirements haven't been tried at a wide scale, but research into the more limited attempts suggest that results are similar. Arkansas imposed its own 'community engagement' rules in 2018. The policy was only in place for 10 months, but in that span 18,000 people in the state lost health coverage and the rules 'did not increase employment,' one study found. Georgia's Medicaid work requirement system, which has been in place since 2023, has been plagued by low enrollment, technical glitches and ballooning administrative costs. Two years ago, the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office released an estimate of the impact that nationwide work requirements for Medicaid would have. It found that the policy would cause 1.5 million Americans to lose their healthcare coverage and would have 'negligible effect on employment status or hours worked.' One of the main reasons that work requirements don't increase employment is because most people who get government benefits are already working or are unable to work. About 92% of Medicaid recipients under the age of 65 are either employed or unable to work because of disability, illness, caregiving responsibilities or school obligations, according to KFF. There is also research showing that adding extra paperwork steps — like requiring people to certify with the government that they are in fact working — can create bureaucratic pitfalls that cause even those who have satisfied all of the new criteria to lose their benefits. 'Work requirements impose administrative barriers and red tape that lead to coverage losses among both people who are working as well as people the policies purport to exempt,' Gideon Lukens and Elizabeth Zhang of the Center on Policy and Budget Priorities wrote earlier this year. Many critics of work requirements say the policy is built on the false belief that people who are struggling to get by are in that position because of laziness or some other personal shortcoming. 'More stringent work requirements implemented in the past have largely failed to boost work in significant ways because these requirements do not attack the core problems of weak macroeconomic conditions, the volatile nature of low-wage work, and other barriers to work,' Hilary Wething of the Economic Policy Institute wrote in January. Republicans are attempting to combine a laundry list of legislative priorities into a single, massive spending bill that they hope to pass before Memorial Day. With narrow majorities in both houses of Congress and zero reason to expect they will get any Democratic votes, they have very little room for error. Any part of the bill could be changed or scrapped altogether if the party can't unify behind it. Medicaid work requirements have been a point of disagreement in negotiations within the party, but so far there has not been vocal opposition to imposing them. In fact, the main critique has come from hardline conservatives who want them to go into effect sooner than they would in the initial proposal.
Yahoo
19-05-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
The GOP wants work requirements for Medicaid. Here's what those rules do (and don't) accomplish
As they work to pass a 'big beautiful bill' filled with tax cuts and spending reductions, Republicans in Congress are proposing adding work requirements to Medicaid, the $618 billion program that provides healthcare to more than 70 million low-income Americans. "When so many Americans who are truly in need rely on Medicaid for life-saving services, Washington can't afford to undermine the program further by subsidizing capable adults who choose not to work,' GOP Rep. Brett Guthrie, chairman of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce wrote in an op-ed last week. 'That's why our bill would implement sensible work requirements.' As the name implies, work requirements are rules that force people to work in order to receive a government benefit. They have been in use for decades as part of other programs, most notably cash welfare assistance, but have never been used nationally for Medicaid. Only one state, Georgia, currently has work requirements for Medicaid. Arkansas had them briefly at the end of the last decade, but the policy was struck down by the courts. The GOP's draft proposal would establish a nationwide 'community engagement requirement' that would mandate Medicaid recipients to work, volunteer, or attend school for at least 80 hours per month to maintain their benefits. It includes many exceptions that would allow pregnant women, new mothers, anyone under 19 and members of certain other groups to keep their coverage without working. Work requirements have been a popular solution to concerns about 'freeloading' in government programs since at least the 1980s. Supporters see them as a crucial step toward putting people on a path to supporting themselves and as a tool to weed out those who aren't willing to put in the effort to improve their circumstances. In the 1990s, then-President Bill Clinton signed a bill establishing nationwide work requirements for cash welfare as part of what he called 'a crusade to transform our system of welfare into a system of work; to transform a system of dependence into a system of independence.' That logic is still convincing to most Americans today. Well over half of respondents (62%) said they support work requirements for Medicaid in a poll taken earlier this year by the healthcare research group KFF. Despite how common this perception is, the overwhelming share of evidence we have from the real world suggests that work requirements don't make people more self-sufficient and create barriers that cause even those who do work to lose benefits they are eligible for. Study after study over the decades has found that work requirements — whether they're for Medicaid, food assistance or cash welfare — don't have a meaningful effect on employment. A recent government report that looked at the effects of work requirements on Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, the program more commonly known as welfare, found that after nearly three decades, the policy had 'little effect on employment' but had 'substantially reduced the number of people receiving the benefits they provide.' A different study on work requirements for food assistance, commonly known as food stamps, found similar results: Employment rates weren't affected, but hundreds of thousands of people lost access to support they relied on to eat. Medicaid work requirements haven't been tried at a wide scale, but research into the more limited attempts suggest that results are similar. Arkansas imposed its own 'community engagement' rules in 2018. The policy was only in place for 10 months, but in that span 18,000 people in the state lost health coverage and the rules 'did not increase employment,' one study found. Georgia's Medicaid work requirement system, which has been in place since 2023, has been plagued by low enrollment, technical glitches and ballooning administrative costs. Two years ago, the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office released an estimate of the impact that nationwide work requirements for Medicaid would have. It found that the policy would cause 1.5 million Americans to lose their healthcare coverage and would have 'negligible effect on employment status or hours worked.' One of the main reasons that work requirements don't increase employment is because most people who get government benefits are already working or are unable to work. About 92% of Medicaid recipients under the age of 65 are either employed or unable to work because of disability, illness, caregiving responsibilities or school obligations, according to KFF. There is also research showing that adding extra paperwork steps — like requiring people to certify with the government that they are in fact working — can create bureaucratic pitfalls that cause even those who have satisfied all of the new criteria to lose their benefits. 'Work requirements impose administrative barriers and red tape that lead to coverage losses among both people who are working as well as people the policies purport to exempt,' Gideon Lukens and Elizabeth Zhang of the Center on Policy and Budget Priorities wrote earlier this year. Many critics of work requirements say the policy is built on the false belief that people who are struggling to get by are in that position because of laziness or some other personal shortcoming. 'More stringent work requirements implemented in the past have largely failed to boost work in significant ways because these requirements do not attack the core problems of weak macroeconomic conditions, the volatile nature of low-wage work, and other barriers to work,' Hilary Wething of the Economic Policy Institute wrote in January. Republicans are attempting to combine a laundry list of legislative priorities into a single, massive spending bill that they hope to pass before Memorial Day. With narrow majorities in both houses of Congress and zero reason to expect they will get any Democratic votes, they have very little room for error. Any part of the bill could be changed or scrapped altogether if the party can't unify behind it. Medicaid work requirements have been a point of disagreement in negotiations within the party, but so far there has not been vocal opposition to imposing them. In fact, the main critique has come from hardline conservatives who want them to go into effect sooner than they would in the initial proposal.
Yahoo
14-05-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
House panel advances measure to cut off Planned Parenthood from Medicaid funds
A key House panel on Wednesday advanced legislation that includes a provision aimed at cutting off Medicaid funding from Planned Parenthood, a longtime goal of congressional Republicans. The House Committee on Energy and Commerce, which oversees health care as part of its wide-ranging portfolio, voted along party lines to approve its portion of congressional Republicans' tax cut and spending bill, a cornerstone of President Donald Trump's agenda. The health portion of the bill, which would also impose work requirements on Medicaid recipients, has drawn criticism and opposition from Democrats and abortion advocates. 'You know the saying, 'women and children first'? Well for Republicans, billionaires go first, and women and children go overboard,' Democratic Sen. Patty Murray of Washington said in a Wednesday afternoon news conference. 'That is essentially the principle that they are writing into their reconciliation bill right now.' Planned Parenthood is one of the largest providers of family planning services to low-income patients. One in 10 Medicaid recipients aged 15-49 who received family planning services went to a Planned Parenthood clinic in 2021, according to KFF, a nonpartisan health policy, research and polling organization. Federal funds allocated through programs like Medicaid and Title IX are already prohibited from directly paying for abortions, except in limited cases. With the bill, congressional Republicans are seeking to bar clinics and providers that offer abortions from accepting Medicaid for the other family planning and reproductive health care services they provide. The language of the measure, while not addressing Planned Parenthood by name, is written as to apply only to the organization. 'Make no mistake, Planned Parenthood is being targeted,' Alexis McGill Johnson, the president and CEO of Planned Parenthood, said at the news conference. 'Just like any other health care provider, Planned Parenthood health centers get reimbursed by Medicaid for the care that they provide. This is nothing more than an attempt to end abortion in the United States, and they are willing to take away birth control, cancer screenings, STI testing and treatment and more to do it.' Democrats attempted to block the provision in committee during a marathon 26-hour session of weighing and voting on amendments. On Wednesday morning, Rep. Lizzie Fletcher of Texas, a member of the Energy and Commerce panel, put forth an amendment to strike the measure from the bill. 'Defunding Planned Parenthood is an assault on the health, freedom and dignity of women across this country,' Fletcher said, citing her home state, which has seen increased maternal mortality rates, as a 'cautionary tale' of what happens when women's health services are cut. Several Republican women on the committee spoke up in defense of the provision to cut off Planned Parenthood from Medicaid, which remained in the bill after members voted down several Democratic amendments to the health care section, including Fletcher's. 'In this bill, we're not saying we're outlawing abortion,' said GOP Rep. Erin Houchin of Indiana. 'We're just saying that tax dollars shouldn't pay for big abortion. But let's be very clear: you can't pour water into only one part of a bucket: the American taxpayers should not be subsidizing abortion, we should be focusing our efforts on maintaining the solvency of health care programs that support moms and babies at every stage of life.' Some moderate House Republicans representing blue states have expressed unease at stripping Medicaid funding from Planned Parenthood, and the bill as a whole faces opposition from hardline Republicans concerned about its impact on the deficit. The measure could also come under scrutiny when it reaches the Senate: when Republicans tried to include a similar provision in the first round of Trump tax cuts in 2017, the Senate parliamentarian ruled it violated upper-chamber procedural requirements. 'I think that this particular provision is going to run into procedural trouble,' House Democratic Whip Katherine Clark said at the Democratic Women's Caucus' Wednesday morning news conference. 'Not only is this attack on reproductive health, it is just a continuation of taking away health care from Americans, in particular American women, in order to pay for tax cuts for those who will have no problem paying any medical bill,' she added. The post House panel advances measure to cut off Planned Parenthood from Medicaid funds appeared first on The 19th. News that represents you, in your inbox every weekday. Subscribe to our free, daily newsletter.
