Planned Parenthood and some smaller abortion providers are allowed to begin billing Medicaid for some services after being cut off from taxpayer funds for a year.  Time is a waist.

     Medicaid billing access resumed on Sunday after Congress missed the deadline to extend President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA), which mandated the defunding of abortion providers when it was signed into law on July 4, 2025.  Senator Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) attempted to extend Planned Parenthood’s funding cut with an amendment to the budget resolution in April, but the Senate voted it down, according to Politico. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) voted alongside Democrats in opposition to the amendment.

     Over the past year, Planned Parenthood said its affiliates closed nearly 30 of its about 600 clinics, carried out about 20% fewer breast cancer examinations and distributed about 25% fewer birth control pill packages than the previous year. It cited a lack of federal funding as a primary reason for the changes.  Angela Vasquez-Giroux, a spokesperson for Planned Parenthood Action Fund, also said the cuts led to limited abortion access in some places, including in Wisconsin.

     The restored government funding does not mean that all services that were cut will return, as the federal Hyde Amendment bans Medicaid funds from covering most abortions, with exceptions for pregnancies that result from rape or incest or endanger the life of the mother. Hyde generally applies to abortion procedures as well as abortion drugs, including mifepristone and misoprostol.  Maine Family Planning, a smaller, rural clinic, also closed three primary care clinics because it met the criteria in the law: it was a non-profit family planning organization that provided abortion and received more than $800,000 yearly in Medicaid reimbursements.