Federal Medicaid and Social Programs

A report released Thursday by Senate Democratic leaders using internal Planned Parenthood data finds that six months after Congress’s One Big Beautiful Bill temporarily cut off Medicaid funding to high‑volume abortion providers, 23 of more than 500 Planned Parenthood health centers have closed and key preventive services have dropped sharply. Compared with a year earlier, breast exam visits fell 25% in December, IUD insertions nearly 40%, birth‑control pill visits 20% in November, and sexually transmitted infection testing more than 10% that month, according to self‑reported affiliate figures shared with over two dozen Democratic senators. The defunding provision, cleared by a federal court and signed into law last July, halts Medicaid dollars to organizations receiving more than $800,000 in annual Medicaid funding that also provide abortions, a standard that primarily hits Planned Parenthood despite Medicaid already being barred from paying for most abortions under the Hyde Amendment. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Ron Wyden are framing the new numbers as a warning as House Republicans’ Study Committee pushes to make the cutoff permanent in a second reconciliation package that Speaker Mike Johnson has said he wants this year. The data sharpen a national policy fight over whether targeting Planned Parenthood financially in the name of abortion restrictions is also shrinking access to contraception, cancer screenings and basic primary care for millions of largely low‑income patients who rely on Medicaid‑funded visits.