For Immediate Release: March 23, 2022
Contact: Audrey Sandusky, asandusky@nfprha.org

NFPRHA Calls for Biden Administration to Protect Access to Medicaid Family Planning

Washington, D.C. – Today, the National Family Planning & Reproductive Health Association and 36 other leading reproductive health groups issued a joint letter in response to recent actions that several states have taken to unlawfully prohibit abortion providers from participating in their Medicaid programs. These actions are in direct violation of federal law that ensures Medicaid beneficiaries have the right to seek family planning care from the provider of their choice. The following is a statement from Clare Coleman, President & CEO of the National Family Planning & Reproductive Health Association: 

“Illegal state-level actions to exclude certain providers from Medicaid programs have gone unchecked by the Biden administration and must be stopped. Every person deserves to receive family planning and sexual health care from the provider of their choice, a legal right under Medicaid. These actions target providers disfavored by states due to services the providers offer outside of Medicaid, such as abortion. They put access to critical family planning and sexual health services farther out of reach for people who rely on Medicaid, disproportionately people of color, people with low incomes, people living with disabilities, and other individuals who already experience systemic barriers to care. 

“The Biden administration must take immediate action to enforce free choice of provider protections so that all people with Medicaid coverage can access sexual and reproductive health care free from political interference. Similarly, no willing and highly qualified provider should ever be barred from state Medicaid programs, because a state government ideologically opposes the health services they provide.”

Click here (PDF) for access to the joint letter.

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NFPRHA is a membership organization representing publicly funded family planning providers and administrators nationwide. NFPRHA advances and elevates the importance of family planning in the nation’s health care system and promotes and supports the work of family planning providers and administrators, especially those in the safety net. For more information, visit nationalfamilyplanning.org.