Update Thursday, May 22, 2025 at 10:20 a.m. PT: On Thursday morning, in a narrow 215-214 vote, the House moved to advance the Republicans’ budget bill. The bill now moves on to the Republican-majority Senate.
According to data released Wednesday by Planned Parenthood, the bill could lead to the closure of 200 health centers—representing roughly a third of Planned Parenthood health centers nationwide. The impacts of these closures will extend beyond states with abortion bans: of the health centers at risk of closure, over 90 percent are in states where abortion is still legal.
The House Rules Committee is set to meet at 1 a.m. ET on May 21 to discuss Medicaid funding cuts that would essentially defund Planned Parenthood.
Republicans are trying to “defund” Planned Parenthood, using budget reconciliation rules that prevent a Senate filibuster and allow passage of the ruling party’s budget without bipartisan support.
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates that blocking patients from using their Medicaid insurance plan to obtain sexual and reproductive healthcare at Planned Parenthood clinics would increase the deficit by $300 million. This is the only provision in the healthcare portion of the reconciliation bill that would increase the deficit.
The provision would stop Planned Parenthood from being able to be reimbursed for providing services to people insured by Medicaid or those eligible for free or reduced fee services through the Title X program. The provision would affect access to pap smears, breast cancer screenings, STI tests, birth control and more to the 2 million people currently served by the close to 600 Planned Parenthood locations across the country each year.
This is nothing more than an attempt to end abortion in the United States, and they are willing to take away birth control, cancer screenings, STI testing and treatment and more to do it.
Alexis McGill Johnson
Federal funds do not reimburse the costs of abortion, which is just 3 percent of all Planned Parenthood services. Planned Parenthood, however, provides 35 percent of abortions in the United States. For this reason, defunding Planned Parenthood has been a priority of Republicans at the state and federal levels for years and is a Project 2025 priority.
“Make no mistake, Planned Parenthood is being targeted,” said Alexis McGill Johnson, the president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Action Fund, at a May 14 press conference. “Just like any other healthcare provider, Planned Parenthood health centers get reimbursed by Medicaid for the care that they provide. This is nothing more than an attempt to end abortion in the United States, and they are willing to take away birth control, cancer screenings, STI testing and treatment and more to do it.”
While defunding Planned Parenthood would bar many patients from choosing their preferred healthcare provider, more than half of Planned Parenthood patients would lose access to healthcare altogether.
“The fact of the matter is, if Republicans get their way—if they succeed in shutting the doors of Planned Parenthood clinics across the country—millions of women will have nowhere else to turn,” said Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.). “After all, two-thirds of Planned Parenthood health centers are in rural and medically underserved areas—places where there’s already a shortage of clinics and healthcare professionals. And for a lot of these patients, Planned Parenthood is literally the only provider in reach and in budget. They literally can’t afford to lose this care.”
If Congress bans patients from using Medicaid at Planned Parenthood, up to half of the organization’s health centers would close and other healthcare providers could absorb those patients. The legislation would damage our public health system, the economy and low-income Americans who rely on Medicaid for their medical care.
KFF’s Health Tracking Poll revealed that one in three women (32 percent) say they have gone to a Planned Parenthood clinic for care and nearly half of Black women have. One in ten men have (11 percent). Over four in ten individuals with Medicaid say they have received services at Planned Parenthood and one third of those with private insurance. One in five Republican women and four in ten Democratic women have received care at a Planned Parenthood clinic.
Defunding Planned Parenthood is deeply unpopular. Polls show that over three-quarters (77 percent) of voters oppose defunding Planned Parenthood health centers, including 63 percent of people who voted for President Trump. Some moderate Republicans have expressed concerns about stripping away people’s access to healthcare.
Reproductive freedom advocates have mobilized to protect people access to healthcare. On May 14, Planned Parenthood ran a 24-hour press conference, storytellers met with members of Congress and pink-clad supporters attended the Energy and Commerce Committee hearing for nearly 24 hours. Planned Parenthood supporters sent more than 200,000 messages to Congress.
“We are not going to stand by as Republicans try to cut off this lifeline, just so they can cut a massive check to billionaires like Trump and Elon Musk,” said Sen. Murray at a May 14 press conference. “We are here today to put a bright and burning spotlight on the full extent of the destruction Republicans are planning. And to lift up the voices Republicans are most afraid of—the patients who they are trying to cut off from healthcare.”
The House Rules Committee is set to meet at 1 a.m. on May 21 to discuss these Medicaid funding cuts.
“If Donald Trump’s big beautiful tax break for billionaires is so great … why not pass it in primetime?” asked Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.), minority ranking member of the House Rules Committee. “Why jam it through in the middle of the night? What don’t they want you to know?”
“If you think you are doing what is right for the American people,” Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-Mich.) added, “you don’t consider it in the dead of night.”
