Planned Parenthood sues the Trump administration over funding ban
The bill, passed late last week and signed into law by President Donald Trump on July 4, will bar Medicaid users from coverage with a health care provider that also provides abortion services.
While the law does not explicitly mention Planned Parenthood, the nationwide family planning and health care provider is in its crosshairs. The law prohibits federal funding for providers 'primarily engaged in family planning services, reproductive health, and related medical care' that also provide abortion.
Planned Parenthood has warned that nearly 200 clinics nationwide – which also provide birth control, STI testing and treatment, and cancer screening – could close as a result of the bill's one-year ban on funds.
Ninety percent of those clinics, Planned Parenthood says, are in states where abortion is legal.
'This case is about making sure that patients who use Medicaid as their insurance to get birth control, cancer screenings, and STI testing and treatment can continue to do so at their local Planned Parenthood health center, and we will make that clear in court,' Alexis McGill Johnson, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, said in a statement.
The bill originally barred funds for ten years, before the Senate Parliamentarian, Elizabeth MacDonough, reduced the measure to one year.
The lawsuit was filed by the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts and Planned Parenthood Association of Utah, in the US District Court for the District of Massachusetts. It has been assigned to Judge Indira Talwani, an appointee of former President Barack Obama.
Anti-abortion advocates quickly railed against Planned Parenthood's suit.
'Planned Parenthood's desperation is showing as they run to the courts again to fix a crisis of their own making,' said Susan B. Anthony's Pro-Life America director of legal affairs and policy counsel Katie Daniel.
The suit lands as Planned Parenthood also battles the Trump administration in court over cuts to a federal teen pregnancy prevention program. Lawyers for five Planned Parenthood networks argued in a federal District of Columbia court this June that administration's changes to the program, including limits on language around diversity and equity, were vague and could bar Planned Parenthood from providing longtime services.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Vox
an hour ago
- Vox
The Trump administration's fundamental misunderstanding about deportations
covers politics Vox. She first joined Vox in 2019, and her work has also appeared in Politico, Washington Monthly, and the New Republic. People attend a rally and march on July 11, 2025, in Oxnard, California. The rally and march came a day after around 200 people were detained by federal officers during a raid at a cannabis farm in nearby Trump administration has offered little consolation to American businesses worried about losing undocumented workers to deportations. US Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins did offer them one solution last week: to replace immigrant farmworkers with Americans who are now required to work in order to access Medicaid benefits, under the recently signed Republican spending bill. 'When you think about it, there are 34 million able-bodied adults in our Medicaid program,' she said Tuesday in a news conference. 'So, no amnesty under any circumstances, mass deportations continue, but in a strategic and intentional way, as we move our workforce towards more automation and towards a 100 percent American workforce.' Unfortunately for the industries targeted in escalating immigration raids — at farms, construction sites, restaurants, hotels, and other businesses — that is not a serious proposal. Agricultural and hospitality industry leaders are pushing back and raising concerns about how deportations could lead to labor shortages. Though President Donald Trump has appeared publicly sympathetic to those concerns, it's become clear that business interests aren't driving his policy. Rather, it's immigration hardliners, led by White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, who are. Republicans have handed US Immigration and Customs Enforcement an additional $75 billion, and the agency is more well-resourced than ever as the administration aims for 3,000 immigration arrests per day and 1 million deportations in a single year. 'I have complete faith that Secretary Noem and Stephen Miller and everyone else in the administration is 100 percent committed to this agenda,' said David Bier, director of immigration studies at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank. The conflict between those hardliners and the affected industries reveals a key fiction at the center of Trump's immigration policy: that masses of immigrant workers are taking away jobs from Americans who are willing and able to fill them. They aren't. But that hasn't stopped the administration from ramping up ICE raids that don't just endanger immigrants and the businesses that rely on them. They're also imperiling job opportunities and the affordability of goods and services available to all Americans. Trump's mixed messages about deportations Following the ICE raids in Los Angeles that spurred mass protests in early June, some business leaders started becoming more vocal about their fears that worksite immigration raids could upend their companies. 'Our great Farmers and people in the Hotel and Leisure business have been stating that our very aggressive policy on immigration is taking very good, long time workers away from them, with those jobs being almost impossible to replace,' Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform in June. On July 4, he said he would put farmers 'in charge' of immigration enforcement when it came to their own businesses, but warned that if they did not do a 'good job, we'll throw [undocumented workers] out of the country.' The Logoff The email you need to stay informed about Trump — without letting the news take over your life. Email (required) Sign Up By submitting your email, you agree to our Terms and Privacy Notice . This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. In practice, however, it's not clear that the Trump administration has retreated on immigration raids since then. Bier said that he has not put any stock into Trump's overtures to industry leaders on deportations. 'I said when he first made a statement to this effect that he was not going to change anything about ICE's operations,' he said. The fundamental misunderstanding behind Trump's immigration raids Immigration hardliners in the Trump administration are operating under the assumption that businesses affected by raids can just hire Americans instead of undocumented immigrants. In reality, many of those immigrants work jobs that no Americans want — even during times of high unemployment and especially when it comes to low-paid, back-breaking positions in agriculture. 'The idea that there are millions of people waiting around who are willing and able to do this type of farm labor is misguided,' said Tara Watson, director of the Center of Economic Security and Opportunity and a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. Bier said some of the best evidence of that is a study of the North Carolina agricultural industry in 2011. Researchers found that, of the nearly half a million unemployed North Carolinians at the time, only 268 native-born Americans applied for 6,500 farm job openings despite the fact that employers were required to publicly advertise the positions. Over 90 percent of those applicants were hired, but most did not show up for their first day of work or quit within a month. Only seven completed the entire growing season. Medicaid recipients in particular are even less likely to fill agricultural job openings than Americans overall, despite Rollins's suggestion to the contrary. For one, there aren't actually many Medicaid recipients who don't already have a job and are able to work at all, let alone able to work a physically demanding job in agriculture. A Brookings study found that out of the roughly 71.3 million recipients of Medicaid, only 300,000 people did not qualify for exemptions to the new work requirements and were not working because they didn't want to. 'There's a reason why they're on Medicaid, and that's because they're kids, they're elderly, or they're disabled, or they already have a job that just doesn't provide them with the kind of health insurance that they need,' said Ben Zipperer, a senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute. Medicaid recipients are also predominantly located in urban areas and aren't likely to relocate for a low-paid job in agriculture. They are very unlikely to swoop in and save farms hard-hit by immigration raids. The fact that the administration is pushing that fantasy shows that its theory of how its immigration policies will affect businesses and the broader economy is misguided. The economic cost of immigration raids Mass deportations of farm workers alone could deal the US a significant blow. It would likely slash domestic agricultural production, driving up food prices for most Americans. Watson said that farms would find it almost impossible to hire people to do labor that cannot be automated, forcing some to move their production abroad. The US might have to start importing certain crops at a higher price depending on the outcome of Trump's tariff negotiations. He has already slapped a 17 percent tariff on Mexican tomatoes. 'If the labor supply for farms is greatly restricted, then farms will produce less, and that will be passed on to consumers as higher prices,' Bier, of the Cato Institute, said. Beyond agriculture, Trump's immigration raids could actually cause the overall job supply to shrink, rather than creating openings that Americans would readily fill. A study by the Economic Policy Institute found that, if Trump meets his goal of deporting 1 million immigrants every year of his second term, it would eliminate the jobs of 3.3 million immigrants and 2.6 million US-born workers by the time he leaves office. The job supply in construction would be particularly hard-hit, falling almost 19 percent overall. That's because immigrants typically have jobs that complement those worked by Americans, filling job openings that the latter will not, and because immigrants also create jobs as business owners and consumers of American goods and services. For that reason, deporting immigrant workers who have no criminal record as part of Trump's 'America First' agenda is 'just building on a myth that immigrants in the US are 'taking American jobs,'' Watson said. 'There's been a huge amount of economics literature suggesting that that's not the case, and that, in fact, immigrants end up generating more jobs for US-born people,' she said.
Newsweek
an hour ago
- Newsweek
What Happens When Washington Cuts Workforce Development? Ask New York
Advocates for ideas and draws conclusions based on the interpretation of facts and data. Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. Though the FY2026 budget isn't final, the newly signed One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) has already triggered devastating disinvestment in New York's workforce and economic stability. Rather than supporting cities in their efforts to build inclusive economic growth, Congress and President Donald Trump have advanced sweeping cuts through OBBBA, eliminating Job Corps (temporarily blocked by the courts), slashing the Department of Labor's budget by 35 percent, and gutting Medicaid. The timing could not be more harmful. Our city and state are making investments in green infrastructure, clean energy, life sciences, and housing. But Washington is pulling critical support from under us. The policies enacted in OBBBA undermine our ability to train workers, support economic mobility, and care for vulnerable communities. President Donald Trump answers questions while departing the White House on July 11, 2025, in Washington, D.C. President Donald Trump answers questions while departing the White House on July 11, 2025, in Washington, the law cuts $715 billion from Medicaid and ACA programs. In New York, over 6.9 million residents rely on Medicaid, including 2.1 million adults through ACA expansion. Hospital reimbursements will shrink. Safety-net providers already operating on razor-thin margins will be pushed to the brink. In New York City, over 1.5 million residents could see a drop in access to care, just as our health care system is still recovering from the pandemic. OBBBA also strips federal support from New York's Essential Plan, which covers 725,000 lawfully present immigrants. Unless New York finds $4 billion annually, coverage losses will follow, disproportionately affecting working adults who keep the city running. And then there's Job Corps. For decades, Job Corps has helped out-of-school youth—especially youth of color—enter the workforce. In New York City, where income inequality remains among the highest in the nation, it's been a pillar of inclusive opportunity. Its elimination would leave thousands of young New Yorkers without a foothold in the economy. New Medicaid work requirements would add red tape with little benefit. Adults aged 18–64 must repeatedly verify employment or exemptions. Up to 1.5 million New Yorkers risk losing coverage, not for failing to work, but for failing to navigate bureaucracy. This provision will overwhelm a municipal workforce that has seen hiring freezes and attrition, particularly in frontline human services and child care administration. Who will support these recipients when the system demands more documentation but offers no added staff? New York City's public assistance infrastructure—especially TANF and subsidized child care—is already strained by backlogs and delays. These new mandates will push it to the breaking point. Families are losing access to both income support and the services that make work possible, like child care, job placement, and case management. This is disinvestment in America's future, and in New York's. SNAP, Medicaid, and workforce development are economic drivers. SNAP alone injects $7.8 billion into New York's economy annually. Workforce training reduces dependency on public benefits, strengthens small business growth, and boosts tax revenue. In New York City, Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA)-funded career centers, youth employment contracts, and pre-apprenticeship pipelines are already being destabilized by the cuts enacted in OBBBA. New York has long been a model for inclusive economic growth and smart workforce investments. But no amount of local innovation can offset a $715 billion federal retreat from health care or the gutting of job training infrastructure. What's equally alarming is the absence of a coordinated, targeted response from City Hall and Albany. There has been no unified strategy to protect the infrastructure of opportunity that so many New Yorkers rely on. A hollowed-out municipal workforce cannot respond effectively. Meanwhile, community-based organizations are once again left to absorb the shock, expected to do more with less, even as they face chronic delays in city payments and no assurances of sustained funding. Instead of mobilizing to mitigate the damage, local leadership has offered silence, short-term patches, or fragmented efforts that fail to meet the moment. At the same time, we find ourselves jousting over mayoral frontrunners and watching the early moves of gubernatorial politicking, while too many New Yorkers are reeling from the dismantling of the middle class, the disappearance of middle-wage jobs, and the erosion of public systems. The disconnect between political theater and lived reality is widening. Debates over who wins the next election will mean little if there's no workforce left to train, no safety net left to rebuild, and no path forward for the people who keep our city running. Congress must be held accountable, and New York's delegation must be unified, visible, and vocal. These cuts are direct threats to job seekers in East New York, to immigrant families in Queens, to union apprentices in the South Bronx, and to working parents in Buffalo and Rochester who rely on Medicaid to stay healthy enough to work. Let us not confuse austerity with a strategic approach. Investing in people is not charity. It is how economies grow. Gregory J. Morris is CEO of the NYC Employment and Training Coalition. The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.
Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Yahoo
Many US employers plan to pare health benefits as weight-loss spending soars
By Amina Niasse NEW YORK (Reuters) -More than half of large U.S. employers plan to scale back healthcare benefits next year as rising costs from weight-loss and specialty drugs squeeze budgets, according to a new survey released by consulting firm Mercer on Wednesday. Among employers with 500 or more workers, 51% said they planned to increase cost-sharing in 2026, including raising deductibles and maximum out-of-pocket costs for workers. That is up from 45% of large employers who said they would increase cost-sharing for 2025. Concern over the cost of GLP-1 weight-loss drugs like Novo Nordisk's Wegovy has surged, with 77% of employers naming them a top issue, the consultancy said. "More clients are saying ... 'I don't know how much longer we can sustain covering these medications'," said Alysha Fluno, a pharmacy innovation leader at Mercer, in an interview. While some employers have covered GLP-1s hoping for long-term health savings, rising prices are forcing a rethink: "Some employers facing big cost increases in 2026 may feel this coverage is out of reach," Fluno said. Greater competition in the weight-loss drug market in coming years will give pharmacy benefit managers more negotiating power with drugmakers and drive meaningful cost reductions, said Fluno. Novo's Wegovy and Eli Lilly's Zepbound are listed at $1086 and $1059, respectively, but many patients pay less through their health plans. Prescription drug costs jumped 8% last year, according to the survey. Mercer has forecast a 5.8% rise in overall health benefit costs for 2025. Employers are also eyeing alternatives to traditional pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs), according to Mercer. PBMs such as CVS Caremark, Cigna's Express Scripts and UnitedHealthcare's Optum Rx act as middlemen between drug companies and consumers. They negotiate volume discounts and fees with drug manufacturers on behalf of employers and health plans, create lists of medications that are covered by insurance, and reimburse pharmacies for prescriptions. Drugmakers say they take an undisclosed cut of the discounts they receive rather than sharing them with patients and payers. Regulatory scrutiny and calls for transparency are fueling interest in new models and emerging PBMs, with 34% of employers considering a switch. The survey found 40% of employers are considering alternative contracting models for their prescription medicine benefits, such as those that price drugs based on the wholesale price that retail pharmacies pay for them. Regulators have criticized the three largest pharmacy benefit managers for steering patients toward more expensive drugs and inflating prices to generate revenue gains, an accusation that the industry denies. California pension fund CalPERS, the second-largest public purchaser of health benefits in the U.S., announced on Tuesday that Caremark would replace UnitedHealth's Optum Rx as the fund's PBM in 2026. CalPERS said its five-year contract with Caremark requires the PBM to boost transparency and oversight.
