Health care providers such as Planned Parenthood and similar clinics are once again eligible to receive Medicaid reimbursements, allowing low-income patients to resume receiving routine care at those facilities in states that permit the payments.
In Missouri and other states that prohibit Medicaid reimbursements to Planned Parenthood, however, the federal change has little practical effect. State law continues to bar the organization from receiving Medicaid payments for any services.
Last year, congressional Republicans fell short of their longstanding goal to ban abortion services nationwide while advancing the One Big Beautiful Bill budget legislation.
But they did succeed in banning Medicaid reimbursements to Planned Parenthood and similar reproductive health care providers nationwide for one year. Because Congress did not renew the ban before taking its Independence Day recess, the ban has automatically expired.
Medicaid can once again cover non-abortion services such as cancer screenings, birth control distribution and testing for sexually transmitted infections at the clinics that were able to remain open. But individual states must decide to allow the clinics to be reimbursed.
Millions left high and dry
According to a 2025 KFF tracking poll, 1 in 3 women reported receiving care at a Planned Parenthood clinic, along with one in 10 men. Nearly half of Black women reported receiving care at a Planned Parenthood clinic. More than 4 in 10 Medicaid recipients said they had received services at Planned Parenthood, while one-third of those patients had private insurance. One in 5 Republican women and 4 in 10 Democratic women also said they had received care at a Planned Parenthood clinic.
A spending bill passed in the 1970s already blocks federal Medicaid dollars from paying for abortion in nearly all cases.
During debate over the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, Republicans sought to make the Medicaid funding restrictions permanent. Democrats unsuccessfully tried to remove the restrictions altogether.
In 2025, however, the Supreme Court ruled that states may prevent providers from being paid through Medicaid programs. The court also found that Medicaid enrollees cannot challenge those restrictions in federal court.
Laurie Sobel, associate director for women’s health policy at KFF, said the ruling marked a significant departure from longstanding interpretations of Medicaid’s “free choice of provider” provision, which guarantees enrollees the right to obtain care from any qualified, willing Medicaid provider.
Nora Walsh-DeVries, vice president of political and legislative affairs at Planned Parenthood Action Fund, said the impact of the cuts “is really horrible for us and some of it is unfortunately irreversible.”
Managing a smaller budget is even more challenging, Walsh-DeVries said, coupled with “kind of also knowing that there is an intention from Republicans to permanently defund us.”
Medicaid covers roughly 96 million Americans, and just over 21.4% of adult Medicaid beneficiaries ages 19 to 64 are Black.
The Trump spending cuts have forced the closure of at least 14 hospitals across 13 states. More than 400 hospitals are at risk of closing or cutting staff, and roughly 360 clinics have closed.
The Medicaid program also covers roughly 40% of pregnancies and births nationwide.
The one-year reimbursement ban forced Planned Parenthood to close nearly 30 health centers since July 2025. Two out of three of the closed centers were in rural areas, medically underserved communities or places facing shortages of primary care professionals.
All of the closed centers were in counties identified as “contraceptive deserts.”
Some states provided roughly $400 million in emergency funding during the ban. But Planned Parenthood health centers in states that only partially replaced lost federal funding — or provided no funding at all — were more likely to close than those in states that fully replaced the money from Washington.
States have the final word
Several states — many in the Bible Belt or with large rural populations — have either permanently blocked or sought to block Medicaid reimbursements to Planned Parenthood, according to Sobel’s analysis. They include Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Texas.
Now that the federal ban has expired, additional states could seek permanent restrictions on Medicaid reimbursements to Planned Parenthood.
Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the nonprofit Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, and other anti-abortion groups want Congress to include the ban in the 2027 tax and spending bill.
“Defunding Big Abortion is now the default expectation of the pro-life movement,” Dannenfelser said in a statement. “When they return to D.C., Republicans must do all they can through reconciliation to once again block taxpayer dollars from Planned Parenthood and abortion businesses.”
Last year’s budget cuts are expected to reduce Medicaid spending by nearly $1 trillion. Experts say the cuts will cause roughly 10 million Americans to lose their health coverage.
This article originally appeared here
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Based on reporting by St. Louis American.
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