By PATRICK WHITTLE
PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — A community of clinics that gives well being care in Maine is anticipated to ask a choose Thursday to revive its Medicaid funding whereas it fights a Trump administration effort to maintain federal cash from going to abortion suppliers.
President Donald Trump’s coverage and tax invoice, often called the “ huge lovely invoice,” blocked Medicaid cash from flowing to Deliberate Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion supplier. The parameters within the invoice additionally stopped funding from reaching Maine Household Planning, a a lot smaller supplier that gives well being care companies in one of many poorest and most rural states within the Northeast.
A federal choose dominated final month that Deliberate Parenthood clinics across the nation should proceed to be reimbursed for Medicaid funding because the supplier wrangles with the Trump administration over efforts to defund it.
Maine Household Planning filed a federal lawsuit final month looking for to revive reimbursements.
Attorneys and representatives for Maine Household Planning say its 18 clinics present very important companies throughout the state together with cervical most cancers screenings, contraception and first care to low-income residents. In addition they say the funding reduce occurred regardless that Medicaid {dollars} aren’t used for its abortion companies.
“With out Medicaid, MFP shall be compelled to cease offering all main look after all sufferers — no matter their insurance coverage standing — by the tip of October,” the group stated in a press release, including that about 8,000 sufferers obtain household planning and first care from the community.
It additionally stated many Maine Household Planning clinics “present care in very rural areas of the state the place there aren’t any different well being care suppliers, and round 70% of their sufferers rely solely on MFP and won’t see every other well being care supplier in a given 12 months.”
In courtroom paperwork, Anne Marie Costello, deputy director for the Middle for Medicaid & CHIP Providers, referred to as the request to revive funding “legally groundless” and stated it “should be firmly rejected.”
“The core of its declare asks this Court docket to revive an invented constitutional proper to abortion — jurisprudence that the Supreme Court docket decisively interred — and to take action in a dispute over federal funds,” Costello stated.
Whereas advocates of chopping Medicaid for abortion suppliers centered on Deliberate Parenthood, the invoice didn’t point out it by identify. As an alternative it reduce off reimbursements for organizations which are primarily engaged in household planning companies — which usually embody issues corresponding to contraception, abortion and being pregnant checks — and acquired greater than $800,000 from Medicaid in 2023.
The U.S. Senate’s parliamentarian rejected a 2017 effort to defund Deliberate Parenthood as a result of it was written to exclude all different suppliers by barring funds solely to teams that acquired greater than $350 million a 12 months in Medicaid funds. Maine Household Planning asserts in its authorized problem that the edge was lowered to $800,000 this time round to verify Deliberate Parenthood wouldn’t be the one entity affected.
It’s the solely different group that has come ahead publicly to say its funding is in danger.
Deliberate Parenthood’s authorized struggle with the Trump administration over Medicaid funding continues to be within the courtroom system additionally.
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