Did John Roberts Accidentally Save Planned Parenthood?
The language in Roberts' opinion could prevent the federal government from coercing a state into funding Planned Parenthood by threatening to withhold all of that state's federal Medicaid money.
"States could easily choose to pay for or not to provide family planning clinics, which is the ... goal of Title X funding," Huberfeld told HuffPost. "I think it’s much harder to argue states could ignore the poor who would lose coverage if Medicaid funding is lost -- which seems to be at the heart of the votes for coercion."
A spokesperson for Planned Parenthood would not comment on the specific impact of the Supreme Court decision on the organization's government funding, but said he is confident the courts are on Planned Parenthood's side.
“We know that opponents of women’s health will keep trying new tactics to insert politics and ideology into these issues of basic health and economic well-being for millions of American women," said Eric Ferrero, vice president of communications at Planned Parenthood Federation of America. "The public overwhelmingly opposes efforts to defund Planned Parenthood and cut millions of people off from the preventive health care we provide, and every time politicians have ignored public opinion and tried to defund Planned Parenthood anyway, courts have uniformly rejected these efforts.
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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/06/scotus-medicaid-john-roberts_n_1654713.html
