Like any other health care provider, Planned Parenthood is reimbursed for the high-quality, affordable health care services we provide. This funding—in addition to other federal funding programs that support family planning services—is essential to ensuring that any patient, regardless of income or insurance status, can access life-saving health care services at Planned Parenthood.

The last few years have brought a slew of attacks on Planned Parenthood’s funding from anti-reproductive health care politicians. Attacks on funding for Planned Parenthood health centers target low-income earning and uninsured patients—and are inherently classist.

Federal “Defund” Efforts

2017 brought four failed attempts in Congress to repeal Obamacare and “defund” Planned Parenthood from Medicaid. Like any other health care provider, Planned Parenthood health centers are reimbursed with Medicaid funding for specific services rendered. Removing Planned Parenthood’s Medicaid reimbursements would have blocked 24,000 low-income Minnesotans—36% of Planned Parenthood patients—from accessing cancer screenings, birth control and STD testing and treatment at their local Planned Parenthood health centers.

In 2019, the Trump Administration "defunded” Planned Parenthood from Title X, the 50-year-old comprehensive family planning program for low-income Americans, by instituting a “gag rule” that would prevent providers from counseling, referring or performing abortions. With the Title X gag rule in effect, 53,000 Minnesota Planned Parenthood patients who rely on Title X-funded clinics could lose access to life-saving health care, cancer screening, birth control, and STD testing.

Since the gag rule went into effect in 2019, the national Title X network of providers has been cut in half, potentially impacting 1.6 million women. In Minnesota, only one Title X provider remains, after Planned Parenthood North Central States and its supporting statewide clinic network was forced out of the program.

With strong sexual and reproductive health champions now in the White House, we will work to make sure that the Biden Harris Administration quickly reverses the damaging Trump-era gag rule.

While Planned Parenthood no longer receives Title X funding, our doors are open. We are doing everything in our power to continue to care for our patients.