(LifeSiteNews) – Planned Parenthood may have to pay back nearly $2 billion in Medicaid payments it continued to bill for in Louisiana and Texas while its eligibility was being challenged.
National Review reported that oral arguments were held Thursday before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in U.S. ex rel. Doe v. Planned Parenthood. The case stems from Louisiana and Texas (among other states) excluding Planned Parenthood from their state Medicaid programs after the 2015 exposure of the organization’s harvesting and sale of aborted baby organs and tissues. Planned Parenthood sued in 2016, but the Fifth Circuit sided with the states in 2020.
However, the current suit, filed a year later, contends that Planned Parenthood continued to file Medicaid claims in Louisiana or Texas from 2016 to 2020 while its eligibility was in dispute. The false claims suit seeks to recover money from the abortion giant that would total $1.8 billion.
“This baseless case has only one goal: to shut down Planned Parenthood and deny patients access to sexual and reproductive health care,” Planned Parenthood Federation of America lawyer Susan Manning said, according to a Fox News report. “Planned Parenthood health centers are nonprofits that provide essential, high-quality health care to more than 2 million people nationwide every year.”
The “stakes couldn’t be higher” for the abortion giant, March for Life president Jennie Bradley Lichter said. “If that ($1.8 billion) obligation stands, it will strike a serious — even existential — blow to Planned Parenthood’s national operations and potentially change the abortion landscape in this country forever.”
Especially without Roe v. Wade to ensure abortion’s legality, the industry relies heavily on taxpayer funding to stay in operation. Last year, Planned Parenthood’s most recent annual report revealed that its affiliates across the nation took in $699.3 million in government “health services” reimbursements and grants, accounting for 39% of its total revenue during that period. At the same time, the abortion chain committed 392,715 abortions – yet its legitimate health services, such as pap tests and cancer screenings, continued to decline as percentages of its overall business.
Within weeks of returning to office, President Donald Trump began enforcing the Hyde Amendment (which forbids most federal funds from directly supporting elective abortions), reinstated the Mexico City Policy (which forbids non-governmental organizations from using taxpayer dollars for elective abortions abroad), and cut millions in pro-abortion subsidies by freezing U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) spending.
In March, the administration froze Title X “family planning” grants to nonprofits it said violated its executive orders on immigration and diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives, including Planned Parenthood affiliates in nine states.
This summer, Trump signed his so-called “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” (BBB) that includes a one-year ban on federal tax dollars going through Medicaid to any entity that provides abortions for reasons other than rape, incest, or supposed threats to the mother’s life. Roughly 60% of PPWI’s patients are covered by Medicaid.
Other Republicans have proposed standalone measures to fully cut off Planned Parenthood’s government funding: the No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion and Abortion Insurance Full Disclosure Act, which permanently bans federal funds from being used for abortion; and the Defund Planned Parenthood Act, which disqualifies Planned Parenthood and its affiliates specifically. But they would require 60 votes to make it through the Senate.
