The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans ruled that Texas and Louisiana can cut off Medicaid funding for Planned Parenthood.
The decision affects Mississippi as well since the state “is under 5th Circuit jurisdiction.”
From Fox News:
The decision by the full 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans reverses an earlier ruling by a three-judge appellate panel that blocked Texas from enforcing its ban on Medicaid funding of Planned Parenthood. It also expressly reversed a ruling in a separate case blocking Louisiana from banning Planned Parenthood funding. A three-judge panel in 2015 had ruled against the ban, and that decision stood when the full court deadlocked 7-7 in 2017 when there were only 14 active judges on the court.The court’s personnel has changed since then. Six nominees of Republican President Trump now sit on the court. Four of them participated in Monday’s case (one was recused and another joined the court too late to take part) and all four joined Judge Priscilla Owen’s opinion for an 11-member majority.Owen entered the opinion, which concluded that Planned Parenthood affiliates weren’t able to contest the state’s determination that it is not qualified to receive Medicaid funds.
The opinion noted that participants in the Texas Medicaid program agreed to comply with the “policies and applicable state and federal regulations.” Texas state law allows the Office of Inspector General (OIG) to investigate providers and “terminate Medicaid provider agreements for noncompliance.”
The OIG sent letters of termination in 2015 after the Center for Medical Progress (CMP) taped “two individuals posing as representatives from a fetal tissue procurement company discussing the possibility of a research partnership with PP Gulf Coast.” The videos also caused Senate and House investigations.
The providers received “a Notice of Termination of its respective Medicaid provider agreement, stating that each was ‘no longer capable of performing medical services in a professionally competent, safe, legal, and ethical manner.'”
The OIG argued the CMP videos proved “PP Gulf Coast violated federal regulations relating to fetal tissue research by altering abortion procedures for research purposes or allowing researchers themselves to be involved in performing abortions.”
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