SCOTUS Could Stop Medicaid From Funding Planned Parenthood

For decades, pro-life conservatives have been trying to defund Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion provider. They receive hundreds of millions of dollars a year from taxpayers, and while DOGE may be looking into it, the Supreme Court could make a significant dent first after they hear Medina v. Planned Parenthood South Atlantic this Wednesday. The case out of South Carolina involves Medicaid payments to Planned Parenthood, the funnel through which they rake in federal dollars. 

I worked at a Planned Parenthood in Texas for eight years, and that Medicaid money was a cash cow, even though it supposedly could not pay for abortions. That money went into the same bank account that we used to pay our overhead costs, medical equipment, staff, and abortion doctors. Money is fungible, and it’s a joke that the federal government thinks otherwise. 

Medicaid money comes from the federal government to pay for health care for low-income individuals and their families. States get to decide how to administer those funds, and in the case of South Carolina, the governor ordered the state’s Department of Health and Human Services to deem Planned Parenthood unfit to receive those funds because they provide abortions. The governor directed the money to be given to actual health care facilities. This is a wise decision since Planned Parenthood is, after all, the country’s largest abortion provider. 

We rarely saw women at the Planned Parenthood I worked at in Texas for anything other than abortion, and if we did, like many other Planned Parenthood facilities, we overbilled Medicaid. For example, if a package of birth control pills only cost us $3, we would bill Medicaid upwards of $30 and pocket the difference. That’s what Planned Parenthood in Iowa did for many years. They were able to make nearly $30 million and eventually were sued by my friend, Sue Thayer, who worked there for almost 20 years. Planned Parenthood was also sued in Texas for Medicaid fraud, where they lost and had to pay back $4.3 million.

The thing is, with Medicaid, that money needs to go to low-income families for health care. Because Planned Parenthood does not care about women or their families, they are willing to not only defraud the system for money but also purposely take away federal funds from families in desperate need. 

While I was shocked that The New York Times recently wrote the truth about Planned Parenthood’s disgusting treatment of women and their staff, I wasn’t shocked by the claims in the story. This quote should be on every billboard outside every Planned Parenthood location: “Over the last five years, the national office has distributed more than $899 million to affiliates to help them deliver care, but none of it went directly to medical services.”

Where did it go? Not to patients who received expired medications or sat in abortion recovery rooms with sewage leaks. Instead, it went instead to pro-abortion politicking, legal costs, and marketing. 

Medina v. Planned Parenthood South Atlantic isn’t just about South Carolina. This case could have vast ramifications across the country for Planned Parenthood if they lose. In the court of public opinion, taxpayer funding of abortion is something that upwards of 60 percent of Americans are against. If they lose, women and their families would be on the winning side since actual health clinics would be able to receive more funding. A South Carolina win would mean that other states won’t be forced to waste time and money on endless litigation.

Planned Parenthood has plenty of money from rage donors who would love nothing more than to give their hard-earned dollars to funding access to abortion and a radical political agenda. Have at it. The Supreme Court finally has a chance to stop forcing American taxpayers to foot the bill for the abortion machine.

Abby Johnson is a former Planned Parenthood manager who now runs And Then There Were None, which helps abortion workers leave their jobs. She is also the author of “Unplanned.”