(The Center Square) – Disenrollment of Planned Parenthood as a Medicaid provider is in a proposal passing the state Senate on Monday and next going before the House of Representatives.
The group offers abortion services in addition to other sexual and reproductive health services. Defund Planned Parenthood & Cost Transparency, known also as House Bill 192, also would require more information about cost of services to be shared with patients by medical providers.
Passage was 28-20, with no Republicans against and no Democrats for the bill.
Critics worry about health care and maternity care for some regions of the state, particularly the 80 rural counties. Sen. Amy Galey, R-Alamance, said the bill doesn’t make a cut to Medicaid and does change eligibility of providers for certain services.
Planned Parenthood would not, if the bill becomes law, go out of business in the state unless it so chooses. It provides services from locations in Asheville, Charlotte, Winston-Salem, Greensboro, Durham, Chapel Hill, Raleigh, Fayetteville and Wilmington. The organization billing itself as “a leader in reproductive health care, rights, and education” has access to other means of funding and can provide services through that support.
Galey, on the chamber floor, said Planned Parenthood South Atlantic – the umbrella organization for the Virginias and Carolinas – transferred nearly $5 million to a political action committee in order to make donations for the 2024 election cycle. That included choices for the General Assembly.
The bill in part codifies an executive order from second-term Republican President Donald Trump intended to prevent elective abortions from receiving taxpayer money.
