Texas Waiver Will Block Access to Family Planning and Preventive Services
Washington –The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ recent approval of a Medicaid waiver project from Texas will prevent low-income women from receiving family planning and preventive care services from the qualified providers of their choice. The approval will allow Texas to take another step towards its ultimate goal of depriving women of quality abortion services by making it difficult, if not impossible, for these needed providers to operate in the state. The collateral damage is to continue to restrict low-income women’s access to Medicaid-covered services.
National Health Law Program senior attorneys Priscilla Huang and Catherine McKee condemned Trump’s HHS and Texas lawmakers for disregarding critical Medicaid provisions that are intended to ensure that low-income individuals and their families have access to the reproductive and sexual health providers of their choice.
“The ‘Healthy Texas Women’ project is anything but,” McKee said. “Instead of increasing access to needed services, the waiver flaunts the Medicaid Act’s protections that ensure beneficiaries receive reproductive and sexual health services from trusted, qualified health care providers. Texas has decimated access to reproductive health services by throwing critical providers out of the state family planning program. Now they will receive federal funding to continue this attack.”
Without access to those health care centers, thousands of individuals will be left in great peril.
Huang noted how the waiver would impact other historically vulnerable communities in Texas. “Reproductive and sexual health providers, including Planned Parenthood and independent clinics, offer abortion care and much more, such as critical preventive services and services vital to the LGBTQ population,” Huang said. “Without access to those health care centers, thousands of individuals will be left in great peril.”
See National Health Law Program’s comments to HHS urging it to reject the Texas waiver.
Please contact the Communications department at [email protected] or 202.621.1023 to speak with Huang or McKee, for additional comments and resources.
National Health Law Program, founded in 1969, advocates for the rights of low-income and underserved people to access quality health care.
