FILE PHOTO - Planned Parenthood South Austin
Health Center is seen in Austin, Texas, U.S. on
June 27, 2016.
By
Jon Herskovitz
| AUSTIN, Texas
A U.S. judge in Austin issued a preliminary
injunction on Tuesday halting Texas' plan to cut
Medicaid funding for Planned Parenthood, saying
the state did not present evidence of a program
violation that would warrant termination.
U.S. District Judge Sam Sparks said
state health officials "likely acted to
disenroll qualified health care providers from
Medicaid without cause." He said the preliminary
injunction will preserve the court's ability to
render a meaningful decision on the case's
merits.
"Such action would deprive Medicaid
patients of their statutory right to obtain
health care from their chosen qualified
provider," wrote the judge who was appointed by
Republican former President George H.W. Bush.
The reproductive healthcare group
has said the threatened funding cut, by
terminating Planned Parenthood's enrollment in
the state-funded healthcare system for the poor,
could affect nearly 11,000 patients across Texas
as they try to access services such as HIV and
cancer screenings.
Texas and several other
Republican-controlled states have pushed to cut
the organization's funding since an
anti-abortion group released videos it said
showed Planned Parenthood officials negotiating
prices for fetal tissue collected from
abortions.
Texas investigated Planned
Parenthood over the videos and a grand jury last
January cleared it of any wrongdoing. The grand
jury indicted two anti-abortion activists who
made the videos for document fraud but the
charges were dismissed.
The state took no further criminal
action against Planned Parenthood after that but
has repeated its accusations that the abortion
provider may have violated state law.
Planned Parenthood has denied any
wrongdoing and sued the anti-abortion activists
who made the videos.
Texas Republican Attorney General
Ken Paxton said his office would appeal.
"Today’s decision is disappointing
and flies in the face of basic human decency,"
he said in a statement.
In fiscal 2015, Planned Parenthood
affiliates across Texas received about $4.2
million in Medicaid funding, the state's Health
and Human Services Commission said. Planned
Parenthood said the amount for 2016 was
estimated at around $3 million.
None of the money that the group
received went for abortions, plaintiffs in a
lawsuit against Texas and the Medicaid defunding
plan have said.
Planned Parenthood has 34 health
centers in Texas, serving more than 120,000
patients, 11,000 of whom are Medicaid patients,
it said.
(Reporting by Jon Herskovitz;
Editing by Grant McCool and James Dalgleish)
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-texas-plannedparenthood-idUSKBN1602S7