Blocking Medicaid For Planned Parenthood

Recall that since the November 2010 elections, the GOP has not focused on job creation or in fact anything that improves the economy. Their main focus has been to eliminate abortion in red states. One cannot recall a recent period when abortion has been so prominently in the news, that is when the news media outlets occasionally do their job.

Indiana will now be the focal point of a federal versus state conflict. Indiana passed a law that excludes Planned Parenthood in that state from receiving medicaid funding. Planned Parenthood as we know is the lightning rod institution for the GOP on abortion. Incidentally abortion is legal, the issue status is long gone. There is no issue, its legal.

A long drawn out legal battle is about to begin as the Federal government describes Indiana's law as being unconstitutional.

In the middle of this are a few opportunistic politicians who are attempting to use this very case as a wedge issue to promote their own political aspirations. Its classic, they are the Joe McCarthy's on Indiana abortion.

CS Monitor: Indiana can't block Medicaid money for Planned Parenthood, feds say

A letter sent Wednesday to the Indiana Office of Medicaid Policy and Planning said the law violates federal Medicaid law because states are prohibited to pick and choose which groups receive Medicaid dollars.


"...Medicaid programs may not exclude qualified health care providers from providing services that are funded under the program because of a provider’s scope of practice..."


Republican lawmakers who pushed for the law’s passage are framing Mr. Berwick’s letter as an example of federal authorities trying to trump state rights.