FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: January 22, 2020
Contact: Audrey Sandusky, (202) 344-5805, asandusky@nfprha.org

Texas Medicaid Waiver an Unprecedented Attack on the Public’s Health

States likely to follow new precedent; do lasting harm to the poor

WASHINGTON, DC – The following is a statement from Clare Coleman, President & CEO of the National Family Planning & Reproductive Health Association (NFPRHA).

“Today, in an unprecedented move, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has chosen to undermine public health and defy federal law by approving a Texas Medicaid family planning waiver that discriminates against trusted, high-quality family planning providers relied upon by countless poor and low-income Texans.

“With the approval of this illegal waiver, CMS has signaled that it is willing to turn a blind eye to the health care access problem pervading Texas and to the decades-long statutory protections for Medicaid beneficiaries.

“If other states follow suit to replicate Texas’ request, or similar, more expansive pending waivers are approved, it will disrupt the existing public health infrastructure and limit critical care for patients in communities across the country. In many communities, these now-excluded family planning centers were the only providers that offered sexual and reproductive health care to low-income residents. Today’s waiver jeopardizes the preventive health care needs of millions of poor and low-income women and will tatter our nation’s health care safety net beyond repair.

“As the national membership organization representing publicly funded family planning providers – state, county, and local health departments, hospitals, family planning councils, federally qualified health centers and other private non-profit organizations including Planned Parenthood affiliates – NFPRHA strongly denounces this waiver and calls on CMS to review Medicaid law and reverse its decision.”

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