Executive Summary
The National Health Law Program (NHeLP) submitted this testimony to the House Committee on Appropriations’ Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies’ hearing on “The Impact on Women Seeking an Abortion but are Denied Because of an Inability to Pay.”
We advocate for Medicaid policies and laws from coast to coast that meet the needs of low-income individuals and others who face systems of oppression that harm their health, such as women; Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Intersex, and Gender Non-conforming (LGBTQI-GNC) people; Black, Indigenous, People of Color (BIPOC); immigrants; and people with disabilities. We also protect and enforce the rights of Medicaid enrollees in the courts.
We also advocate for a seamless system of comprehensive, quality, and affordable health care that includes the full spectrum of reproductive and sexual health services. That spectrum includes family planning and pregnancy-related care, including abortion, an essential health care service. We apply a reproductive justice framework in our advocacy and analysis, exposing and fighting the systems of oppression that affect a person’s ability to make health decisions about their body, sexuality, health, and reproductive future. NHeLP’s testimony for this hearing addresses how the Hyde Amendment’s de facto ban on federal abortion funding withholds access to an essential health care service, threatening the health, lives, and economic wellbeing of Medicaid enrollees and their families.
