Low-income Texas women in middle of healthcare fight

The Texas program aimed at providing cancer screenings, birth control and other health services to more than 100,000 women who can't afford private care but also don't qualify for Medicaid has reached equilibrium. But that equilibrium is about as uncomfortable and unstable as it can get.

Until the end of the year, the Women's Health Program will continue with federal funding that covers 90 percent of its roughly $40 million in annual costs. But that federal money will stop flowing Dec. 31 because the Legislature passed a law last year excluding any organization affiliated with abortion providers -- in other words, Planned Parenthood.

The move was similar to those in several states where conservative lawmakers want to stop any public money going to Planned Parenthood, even if that money doesn't directly support abortions.

Federal rules have long said states can't make decisions about where women choose to get healthcare. Legislators and Gov. Rick Perry knew -- or at least should have known -- that the new state law would conflict with those rules and a fight was coming.

Perry pledged to continue the program with state funding. On Wednesday, he said the new Texas plan was ready for launch and will have 500 more healthcare providers statewide than the federally funded program.

The new plan was set to begin Thursday, but it didn't. Officials said the federally funded program will continue until the federal money plays out or related lawsuits are concluded. For now, Planned Parenthood is still a provider.

Fair enough. The legal process should have time to play out.

But the legal picture is a tangled mess. Planned Parenthood filed a lawsuit this year, a federal judge ordered the state to keep the federal program going while the suit went forward, and then a federal appeals court said the state could stop paying Planned Parenthood. That case is still active.

Now Planned Parenthood has sued in state court, saying even Texas law says the state can't make changes that would mean losing federal dollars.

Court action elsewhere is a mixed bag. An appeals court in Chicago said Indiana violated federal regulations when it barred Planned Parenthood from Medicaid funding for general health services. A federal judge has said a similar Arizona law can't be enforced.

But Oklahoma stopped the flow of federal money to three Planned Parenthood clinics in Tulsa.

Perry is adamant, saying, "Texas law will not allow a program that includes abortion providers or their affiliates like Planned Parenthood to be a provider."

The state can start its own program and run it without federal money. People could argue about the wisdom of spending those millions when the state is strapped for cash and federal money is on the table ready to be picked up.

As he sometimes does, Perry went overboard with his rhetoric. Texas will kill the program entirely if Planned Parenthood's lawsuits are successful, he said, making Planned Parenthood "responsible for denying these important health services to the low-income women of Texas."

He added, "It would also confirm that their own profits and their pro-abortion agenda are more important than the women they claim to care for."

Planned Parenthood is doing what its organizers and supporters believe is right, providing nonabortion health services to women while, through its affiliates, providing legal abortions to those who want them. To say they don't care about those women goes too far.

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