In the May 24, 2017, issue of the Wednesday STOPP Report we told you that Texas was preparing to apply for a Medicaid waiver which would ask the federal government to give Medicaid funds to Texas, while allowing it to exclude abortion providers (e.g., Planned Parenthood) from its Medicaid program.
On June 28, Gov. Greg Abbott sent the unique waiver to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) in Washington, DC and asked for approval. CMS is currently taking comments from the general public, and will continue to do so until August 4, 2017.
If this waiver gets approved, it could open an avenue for every state in the nation to defund Planned Parenthood of Medicaid funds—even if the US Senate does nothing.
Planned Parenthood is scared and is doing everything it can to prevent approval of this Texas Medicaid waiver.
We ask you to take the following actions as soon as possible:
- Go to the CMS comment page and comment on the Healthy Texas Women waiver request. Tell CMS to approve this waiver. Anyone in the country is welcome to comment, and we encourage all of our readers as well as family and friends to express support.
- Tom Price, the United States Secretary of Health and Human Services, needs to hear from you. We have a PETITION to Mr. Price, which you can sign at stopp.org/price-petition/. We will get a list of all the signers to Secretary Price by August 4.
YOUR ACTION NOW will allow states to do what the Senate seems reluctant to do—take all Medicaid funds away from Planned Parenthood. As a bonus, the waiver will allow states to withhold the funds for several years—possibly forever.