Obama Administration Shouldn’t Mess With Texas

The Obama Administration is learning that it shouldn’t mess with Texas.

 

Late last year, the state dropped Planned Parenthood from its lucrative contract under Texas’s Women’s Health Program. Attorney General Greg Abbott and state legislators were adamant that health providers who offered abortions had no business participating in the program. With $16 million up for grabs, leaders passed an outright ban on Planned Parenthood, ending its eligibility for the state’s Medicaid funding. That didn’t sit well with the Obama administration, which swooped into Texas and demanded the state reconsider. When it wouldn’t, officials with Health and Human Services (HHS) threatened to cut off federal Medicaid funding completely.

 

But Texas didn’t blink. Last Thursday, state Commissioner Tom Suehs signed the rule into law, calling HHS’s bluff and putting Planned Parenthood clinics on the road to extinction in the Lone Star State. Spokesperson Stephanie Goodman said:

“Under federal law, states administer Medicaid and have the right to set the criteria for providers in the program. That is what Texas is doing. We have a state law that [Attorney General Abbott] says is constitutional, and it clearly bans abortion providers from taking part in the Women’s Health Program. We can’t violate a perfectly valid state law just to appease Washington.”

 

Already, the policy is having a domino effect on the state’s network of Planned Parenthood offices. So far, 12 clinics have closed and others (like the Odessa branch) waited for Thursday’s decision before choosing to shut its doors for good.

 

Could the evidence be any clearer? Despite what Planned Parenthood says about segregated funds and the prohibitions on financing abortions, our tax dollars are what keeps these clinics afloat. Without them, Planned Parenthood withers on the vine.

 

HHS is trying to paint Texas’s decision as extremist, but I think it’s clear who the real extremists are. After all, the Obama administration would rather deny health care to poor women than hurt its relationship with a deceitful despicable organization whose major funding rises from the commission of infanticide.

 

Shame on the states that do not follow the lead of the Great State of Texas.

 

***Ed Randazzo, is a nationally syndicated author. He has been a conservative activist and consultant for over 30 years and is currently the Chief News Editor of Life and Liberty Media***