AUSTIN (CBSDFW.COM/AP) The state of Texas wants Planned Parenthood to return more than $ 10 million in payments to low-income patients, according to a lawsuit filed Jan. 13. The move comes years after Republican leaders moved to cut Medicaid dollars to the reproductive health care provider.
Planned Parenthood called the trial “another political attack” in Texas, where most abortions have been banned since September 2021 under a new law that the U.S. Supreme Court has allowed to remain in effect.
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The exterior of a Planned Parenthood Reproductive Health Services Center is seen. (Credit: Michael Thomas / Getty Images)
The money Texas is seeking to get back from Planned Parenthood did not pay for abortion services – which do not receive public funding – but covered cancer screenings, access to contraception and other health services. Planned Parenthood has previously set the number of low-income patients it earned in Texas under the program at 11,000.
Republicans across the United States launched efforts to repay Planned Parenthood in 2015 over secretly recorded and heavily edited videos taken by anti-abortion activists. Texas health officials accused Planned Parenthood officials of giving false information to investigators and began the process of removing its clinics from the Medicaid program.
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Thirteen states’ investigations into these videos have been completed without criminal charges, and Planned Parenthood officials have denied any wrongdoing.
Planned Parenthood spent years in court fighting for its removal from the Medicaid program, but ultimately lost. Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton is now arguing with a federal judge in Amarillo that Planned Parenthood was not entitled to keep the more than $ 10 million it received in reimbursement while fighting the decision.
Planned Parenthood served only a fraction of the 4.3 million people enrolled in Medicaid in Texas.
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