Judge Indefinitely Blocks the Ban on Planned Parenthood Medicaid Funding
The judge ruled that the plaintiffs “demonstrated a substantial likelihood of success on Plaintiffs’ Bill of Attainder claim.”
U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani in Boston said the government must continue to reimburse Medicaid funding for Planned Parenthood despite Congress and President Donald Trump signing the defunding in the Big Beautiful Bill.
The plaintiffs include Planned Parenthood of America, Planned Parenthood of Massachusetts, and Planned Parenthood of Utah.
Talwani’s ruling is a permanent block, replacing her previous preliminary injunction.
Bill of Attainder
Talwani also ruled that the plaintiffs “demonstrated a substantial likelihood of success on Plaintiffs’ Bill of Attainder claim.”
A Bill of Attainder claim refers to the plaintiffs’ challenge to a bill because it allegedly punishes a specific individual or group.
The Constitution does not allow Congress to pass laws like that.
Talwani insisted the plaintiffs the three-point test:
Planned Parenthood’s evidence? The provision applies to nonprofit organizations that made $800,000 or more from Medicaid payments.
In 2023, Planned Parenthood received over $800,000 in Medicaid payments.
That does make it identifiable.
However, the defendants claim “that Section 71113 is not a bill of
attainder because it applies to at least two entities that are not Planned Parenthood Members and because it is based on future conduct.”
So…if it does apply to others and not just Planned Parenthood then the Bill of Attainder claim goes out the window, right?
(I’m still reading through the ruling so bear with me!)
Other Reasons
OK, I can understand the Bill of Attainder claim.
But other reasons given by Talwani? Laughable, especially unintended pregnancies. I’m not kidding (emphasis mine):
Patients are likely to suffer adverse health consequences where care is disrupted or unavailable. In particular, restricting Members’ ability to provide healthcare services threatens an increase in unintended pregnancies and attendant complications because of reduced access to effective contraceptives, and an increase in undiagnosed and untreated STIs. Brindis Decl. ¶¶ 11, 58, 62–66 [Doc. No. 5-5]. Moreover, decreased access to contraceptives and the corresponding increase in the number of unintended pregnancies caused by excluding Planned Parenthood Members from Medicaid will likely result in an increased number of abortions. Id. ¶ 71. Restricting access to Member healthcare clinics will negatively affect more than just reproductive health; Members often serve as a source of primary care for patients. Id. ¶ 82. Planned Parenthood Federation reported in its most recent annual report that its Members provided 426,268 cancer screenings and other diagnostic procedures. Id. ¶ 84. Reduced access to screening services creates a likelihood that health issues will go undetected with attendant serious consequences. Id. ¶ 74.
Why can’t Planned Parenthood give out condoms and birth control pills for free?
Also, why does the government provide 40% of Planned Parenthood’s revenue?
Yes, I know about Title X, but still. You’d think with all the celebrity and Hollywood support Planned Parenthood has, it wouldn’t need federal funds for anything.
All that funding and support also nulls this argument:
The record supports Plaintiffs’ contention that Section 71113 will force Planned Parenthood Members to turn away Medicaid patients, and lost revenue from Medicaid programs will force Member health centers to reduce hours and may cause some health centers to close.
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Comments
I am betting the Supreme Court overturns this. Congress cannot be forced by the judiciary to allocate money. President Trump is in a quandary because he cannot give money he does not have to Planned Parenthood. He should tell the judge to go to Congress to make them give the money to Planned Parenthood. Let’s see how that works out.
Congress has appropriated money for Medicare. It has simply excluded PP from receiving any of that money. If that exclusion is a bill of attainder then it is invalid, and the government must distribute the money to PP on an equal basis with all other recipients. That’s obvious.
Further, there are things Congress has to appropriate money for; the constitution requires it, so if it doesn’t the courts may certainly find that its failure was unlawful. Suppose Congress were to vote not to pay the president’s salary, or judges’ salaries, or the national debt; that vote would be plainly unconstitutional, and a court can find so. I don’t think it can force Congress to do its duty and appropriate the funds; but it can certainly find as a matter of law that the vote not to was invalid.
Likewise Congress simply cannot arbitrarily exclude recipients from its funding; it can’t say “this money goes to universities that are not named Harvard”. It just can’t. When it does so that decision is invalid. And since it has appropriated the money for universities, that has to include Harvard.
So if the exclusion is invalid, PP is entitled to receive the money. The question is whether it is invalid. PP was excluded, not out of any animus, or even because of any past behavior, but because it uses that money to kill babies.
Congress doesn’t have to like abortion. It could ban it altogether under the commerce clause, if it wanted to. Therefore a fortiori it can simply refuse to fund it, directly or indirectly.
Letting PP get Medicare payments does that. Money that would have to be used for Medicare-eligible services is now free to be used for abortions instead. Result: More dead babies. Congress doesn’t like that and can say that anyone of a certain size who kills babies can’t get funded; if PP wants its money, all it has to do is stop killing babies.
In the last Supreme Court case, US vs. Lovett (328 US 303 (1946)) the Supreme Court laid out a 3 part test for a bill of attainder: 1) specifically identified the people to be punished; 2) imposed punishment; and 3) did so without the benefit of judicial punishment. In the Planned Parenthood case, it was not named and it was not punished. So, the exclusion from the budget is not a bill of attainder.
Jack, the people to be punished have to be identified, but they do not have to be named. The identification can be done by defining a category that is designed to fit only them. The key part is that Congress had one or more specific people in mind and meant the law to apply only to them.
Also note that, as here, the act targeting Lovett and other people was a funding bill that defunded their salaries, and the Supreme Court struck it down and held that Congress must appropriate the money to pay them, even for services rendered after Congress had voted against paying them.
Is there a difference being identified and being named? Planned Parenthood was neither name nor identified.
In reply to jack silverspring – there is no difference in being identified vs being named. Fwiw, the 1986 tax reform act had upwards of 100 specifically identified, but not named, taxpayers that had special carveouts for the new provisions in the 1986 tax reform act.
It is a shame Milhouse is such a cavalier gadfly. He is not considering the long game.
Sadly, Milhouse will have a first hand look at real Bill’s of Attainder and collective punishment once the Communist Zohran Mamdani is elected Mayor of New York City. His (our) community will not fare well under the thumb of Mamdani.. Think greatly reduced police protection for Brooklyn Jewish enclave..
So you would decide cases based on whose ox is gored?!
“So if the exclusion is invalid, PP is entitled to receive the money. The question is whether it is invalid. PP was excluded, not out of any animus, or even because of any past behavior, but because it uses that money to kill babies. ”
I am going by the premise that the exclusion is valid based on the easily established fact that not only does PP kill babies but it sold parts of those fetuses when it was illegal to do so.
And I think you meant Medicaid not Medicare.
For those who down voted you. I don’t think they read to the conclusion of why defunding PP is valid.
Milhouse continually suffers from people who don’t understand that he draws a distinction between what is and what people think should be.
You missed the point. They DON’T HAVE JURISDICTION
Source: Andrew Branca
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uDeHpqCATOA
This Judge is a loon. The plaintiffs arguments would be worth hearing out if this was an Executive Branch decision. Instead the Judge is telling Congress they can’t decide whether to authorize and appropriate funds for which priorities. She seems to be endorsing the view that Congress may not ever cut any funding once it was authorized if there is political disagreement about the prudence, practicality, morality or utility of the thing being cut b/c that political disagreement automatically makes any stoppage in payment an illegal ‘retribution’. It’s as if she’s warping and then turbocharged some bizarre interpretation of estoppel to carry the water on this.
She’s gonna need to explain how her ruling meets basic Constitutional thresholds such as:
‘All legislative powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress..’
‘No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law…’
She’s attempting to take pinnacle legislative power from Congress in favor of her District Court. Involuntary commit this loon and remove her from the bench.
Congress can’t pass bills of attainder. Including to exclude people it doesn’t like from receiving funding on the same basis as everyone else. The question is whether that is what it has done.
As for ordering Congress to appropriate money, what would you do as a judge if Congress decided not to fund its direct constitutional obligations, such as judicial salaries? Or the president’s salary?
Milhouse,
1. This isn’t a bill of attainder. Not in any rational universe. To claim such is a bad faith argument. A bill of attainder imposes a punishment. There’s no punishment here. Congress is under no obligation to continue funding at the levels of the prior Congressional authorization/appropriation and may discontinue funding. Funding priorities are entirely a political question for the representatives of We the People to determine.
2. Do? The only thing the Judiciary can do is piss and moan in that scenario or really any scenario b/c the Judiciary has no independent means to enforce its rulings. The Judiciary relies upon the goodwill and mutual respect of the Executive and Congress to give any force to its rulings which is undermined by lunacy like this. If Congress views this lunacy and says ‘ok, were cutting the Judicial budget to Judge’s salaries only and the Executive piles on and removes US Marshals what’s the Judiciary gonna do? Not jack b/c they don’t have anything they can do, both of those decisions are totally within the purview of the other Branches.
It’s true the budget passed by a particular Congress may not decrease compensation for a particular Judge but Congress doesn’t have to pass a budget on any timetable set by either the Judiciary or the Executive. They could even fail to pass a budget. In fact that’s why the Military Budget is limited to two years out, a holdover from Britain’s Parliament only funding the British Military for a single year….it puts the ability of the Executive (or the Judiciary) to misbehave in check.
In sum this Judge is a loon. The Judiciary can not order the Congress to authorize and appropriate funds for whatever purpose the Judiciary wants nor can they order the Executive to spend any funds not authorized or appropriated. She should be locked up in a nice quiet place with lots of caring staff and 24/7 thorazine drip to keep her on an even keel.
This is just wrong. See the Lovett case that Jack just cited; Congress used its appropriations power to prohibit using taxpayer money to pay specific individuals’ salaries. The Supreme Court said that was a bill of attainder and the people had to be paid, even for services rendered after the bill had passed.
Milhouse,
Different facts. This legislation is forward looking creating criteria to qualify for program participation. It doesn’t reach back and effectively impound funds already authorized and appropriated as occurred in prior cases. Plus PP could still qualify IF they built a fire wall between their abortion services and the remainder of their operations.
A district judge can’t compel funds to authorized and appropriated. That is a core Congressional power. PP isn’t being impacted by anything but their failure to conform to the criteria to be eligible for program participation.
Beyond that basic hurdle this is a completely Cray Cray destabilizing argument. When people and institutions stop listening to the Judiciary or worse drag them out to be tarred and feathered no whining about the loss of ‘respect for the law or of the Judiciary’. This argument sets us a fair piece down the road to those horrible outcomes. No name calling, no pearl clutching, no whining when/if it occurs from those that refuse to divert the Judiciary from putting their head into the noose.
Your out in left field on this one. Withholding federal funding from several groups of which pp is one is not punishment. Funding is discontinued all of the time. To say that funding for PP can never stop is a door we can’t go through. To let one judge tell Congress what they must appropriate money on is beyond dangerous. That wench needs to be impeached for not only trying this but making such stupid arguments to do it
She is an affirmative loon.
Withdrawal of elective spending is not a punish. Thus, not a bill of attainder.
Excluding someone from a generally available benefit is a bill of attainder, and Congress can’t do that. The only question is whether that is what it has done here. Planned Parenthood doesn’t have to kill babies; it could decide to stop, and then it would get all the Medicare funding it wants for its eligible activities.
From the article
“However, the defendants claim “that Section 71113 is not a bill of
attainder because it applies to at least two entities that are not Planned Parenthood Members and because it is based on future conduct.””
If this is true it would seem that the bill of attainder argument is no longer in play. If the judge chooses to ignore that then they need to get an appeal to a higher court. I could see how the judge could say a provider that makes more than x amount from Medicare identifies planned parenthood but it also identifies several other entities so I do not think that broad of an identification is what the court had in mind when making the rules.
That it also fits two other entities might be enough to dismiss this case, or it might just mean that those two entities are also being targeted and it’s a bill of attainder against all three. It depends on who they are, and what Congress intended.
The important defense here is the second one, that the ban is based on future conduct, not past. All PP has to do to protect its funding is to stop killing babies. All the blood it already has on its hands will not then prevent it from getting full funding. That is why it’s not a bill of attainder.
Planned Parenthood claims they offer essential health services to women and their families. I doubt they will take up any opportunity to show that is true by shifting their mission away from performing abortion on demand for any reason and towards Pap smears and such.
Just say No or use a condom and “unplanned pregnancy” and STI’s won’t exist. Of course, that implies a basic amount of self discipline on the part of those involved.
.
It shouldn’t be called Planned Parenthood. It’s not for people who plan to be parents. It’s for people who failed to plan and don’t want to be parents.
Very apt observation. The vile Dhimmi-crats are masters of rhetorical euphemism and sleight-of-hand, in order to obfuscate and sanitize their evil deeds and agenda; in this case, infanticide.
That isn’t true. PP’s purpose is to allow people to decide when to become parents. Its idea is that people should become parents when they plan to, and not when they don’t. It started out doing this by making contraception easily available, and very few people have any problem with this. The problem is only when they turned to helping people who are already parents and don’t want to be, by killing their babies.
Talwani… again.
Imagine going to law school, practicing law and being appointed to the federal bench without understanding what a ‘Bill of Attainder’ is.
Well, we have at least one USSC judge who doesn’t know what a woman is. Do you think that less-than-stellar DEI judge knows what a bill of attainder is? How about letters of marque and reprisal (see Section 8)?
And these clowns take an oath (Article VI) to this document! Yikes.
Were blocking funding entitlement cuts as a matter of law now? These judges are ridiculous.
FYI Celebrities don’t donate. Quite the opposite in that they expect payment for helping raise money for causes.
And then they send the money they raised to the wrong recipients.
More black girl magic
This ruling basically says that Congress can never defund anything.
Well, to the lefties cutting the defense budget would be okay.
It can defund Medicare altogether. It just can’t exclude a particular recipient by name, and that’s what PP claims it has done here.
SCOTUS has already found that it can’t exclude a state from Medicare payments just because the state refuses to do what Congress wants it to, i.e. establish an 0bamacare exchange. That was in NFIB v Sibelius that so many people here who didn’t bother reading it love to trash.
And it had already found long ago that states’ highway funding can’t be cut more than they can afford, in order to force them to lower their speed limits or raise their drinking ages. That cut only survived because it was low enough that the states could have afforded to absorb it and stand their grounds.
The flaw in that argument is that they never named planned parenthood. They just listed a set of attributes, by the way, that multiple organizations meet.
They don’t need to name it, they just need to have intended the bill to apply only to PP, or only to it and those other entities.
Who are those other entities? Are they just affiliates of PP, that Congress also intended? In that case it would still be a bill of attainder, if not for the fact that it only covers future behavior.
As I’ve been saying all along, the real flaw with the case is that even if it’s aimed specifically at PP, and even if it only affects PP, all PP has to do to restore is funding is to stop killing babies. That’s what makes it not a bill of attainder.
But all the challenges to the case that are based on the idea that Congress has absolute control over its appropriations and no court can tell it otherwise, are wrong. Bills of attainder are unconstitutional even if all they do is refuse to appropriate money.
I am sure you meant Medicaid.
Congress get off your backsides. You the fastest way to end these social engineers.
Congress did get off their backsides. They passed a funding bill that did not say the words Planned Parenthood in it anywhere so personally I would say they lack standing. Congress had to make cuts, they chose to cut abortion providers who bill more than 800k to medicare.
I would say that they definitely do have standing as the cuts to Medicaid funding directly affect PP’s bank accounts. What I don’t think they have is a winning case outside of certain judge’s chambers.
PP doesn’t have a right to taxpayer money. There is no punishment because they had no legal right to expect a single penny.
Not a bill of attainder:
1. A bill of attainder defines a crime that’s tailored to a specific target person or other entity. Yet, the appropriations bill identifies no crime and Planned Parenthood is under no threat of indictment. The complained-of “bill of attainder” does not exist.
2. The cessation of funding is merely a withdrawal of a benefit (the appropriation of funds by Congress) to which Planned Parenthood has no right and no reasonable expectation of receiving in perpetuity. It is not a “punishment” for a crime of any sort, much less as a loss of funding due to a “bill of attainder,” it is the result of a policy decision (even if the policy is based on a belief that what PP does is “wrong” – all policy making is based on consideration of what is “right” and what is “wrong”), and not the result of a judicial process (that would be required to inflict punishment based on an actual bill of attainder – there is no statute identifying any of Planned Parenthood’s activities as “crimes”).
That is not true. Any law excluding someone by name from any government benefit is a bill of attainder. And that’s what PP claims Congress has done here. If so, Congress has exceeded its powers, and it’s the courts’ business to say so. The big question is whether it’s so. I don’t think it is.
That seems like it would be simple to settle. Search the text of that bill for the words Planned Parenthood and when they don’t show up, case dismissed. Pretty sure those words aren’t in there especially in combination
No, that is not correct. The words don’t have to be there. I think it’s not a bill of attainder, but not for that reason.
In the next recession package defund the federal judges in the Boston area. Just get rid otherwise Circuit Court judges for that area. All of them. Put a shot across Roberts bow to reign in “his” judges. He is the boss of the Judiciary. Make him act like one. This comity crap has gone on long enough. I guess the slap downs from the Supremes has made little to no difference to these leftist loons.
Rein is how you control a horse.
Reign is how a horse’s ass controls you.
Congress can abolish those courts, but it can’t defund the judges’ salaries. It is required to appropriate money for paying them, whether it likes it or not.
Nope. Congress is only required to authorize and appropriate the Judicial salaries within a budget. If Congress declines to pass a budget…..
Not quite. If Congress chooses to eliminate all inferior Courts then there are no Judicial Offices active other than the SCOTUS. Since the Constitution protects the continuation of Judicial Salaries while ‘in office’ (or those already retired) the ‘active Judges’ who just had their Judicial Office eliminated won’t hold a Judicial Office and Congress is under no duty to continue their payment of compensation. So Congress could in fact weasel out of paying them. Wouldn’t be very nice but could be done.
Not true. They are entitled to hold office during good behavior. So until Congress finds bad behavior they can’t be fired and must be paid even if there is no court for them to sit on.
Don’t be obtuse. The prohibition on removal of a Judge from Office is predicated on the continued existence of the Office. In this scenario Congress isn’t removing the Judge from the Office, instead the Congress is removing the Office. No office = no judge to pay. Very simple.
Now those already retired Judges and probably those still active Judges who have qualified for but haven’t yet retired would be entitled to their pension. No one, not even a ‘judge’ is entitled to exercise authority in perpetuity. This is how it could be executed.
Who sets the pay level? How about minimum wage?
Congress set the pay level, and can’t reduce it. It must pay them, for the rest of their lives, at least as much as it is now paying them. Unless it removes them for bad behavior, which cannot be simply making decisions it doesn’t like.
Nope, ‘good behavior’ is a political question subject to the political decisions of the Congress just as what qualifies as a ‘high crime and misdemeanor’ is a political question. While a Judge could be impeached it isn’t specifically required in the Constitution. Congress could take a vote on a motion to remove a list of Judges based on failure to maintain ‘good behavior’. If it passed they wouldn’t be a Judge anymore. I think it would be an extreme act to do so as well as very politically perilous to the Congressional majority that did so….but that’s kinda the point. It is a political question answered by our elected representatives and if We the People don’t like it we can use our own political power the next election cycle to hammer them politically by voting them out.
She was confirmed as a judge in May of 2014, a 94-0 vote, Sounds like a classic DEI move, applauded as the first Asian on the First Circuit Court.
Unpopular opinion:
I’ve grown to enjoy these ridiculously crafted decisions as they are harming the very judges that are writing them, not Donald Trump.
In the same way that public opinion opposes giving federal dollars to NPR/PBS, public opinion opposes giving Planned Parenthood federal dollars. We returned jurisdiction of abortion to the states. For those states that still support butchering defenseless human beings, let them support PP. Or hold a bake sale. Or a raffle.
Can’t there be a compromise? How about the government hands out free surplus coat hangers?
Knowing the retards in our government, they’d be handing out the plastic coat hangers
to help facilitate the *removal* of babies from unintended wombs
planned non nuclear non white parenthood has installed machinegun like needles in their facilities to hasten the process
not to worry
if they didnt get you while in the womb
they will while you’re out on their streets
So, “We won’t pay you anymore” is a punishment? I can see a fine as a punishment. But businesses lose paying business all the time. It’s just a part of life.
The judge appears to me have reached the conclusion she wanted and slapped together some fake reasoning to support it.
Yes, “we won’t pay you any more” is a punishment, when it’s based on past (alleged) behavior and not on future behavior. This is long-established. See the Lovett case that Jack cited earlier.
Congress should never have passed funding in the first place.
Yes, Medicare was always a bad idea. But it’s a popular one, so Congress is not going to abolish it.
Obama judge of course.
According to the Constitution and the Founders’ vision/writings (see the Federalist Papers)…the judiciary is the WEAKEST leg of the federal government. Legislative is the STRONGEST (and closest to We the People), Executive is the authority to assert judgements / amendments / activity. This whole article should be a “No go” and “Non-news”…but…when the Fourth Establishment is trying to do the same thing the judiciary is trying to do…you get some weird opinions and stories (non-factual, both).
Where does the constitution guarantee free abortion pills?
It is clear this Judge should be impeached and removed. Per the Constitution Congress decides where money goes and the President does the Administration of what Congress decides. This Federal District Judge has no say and obviously does not understand the Constitution and Federal Law so should not be a Judge.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=uDeHpqCATOA&fbclid=IwQ0xDSwL4lvFleHRuA2FlbQIxMAABHuB75yZK7fVFnHZVH73OmpA8WCvCbi7crmhCw2ak6m6PSwvsyon5XuiBnlU3_aem_tMRmB7IUr5Badkm7sgKCEQ