AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Texas is suing Planned Parenthood to return more than $10 million in reimbursements to patients with low incomes in a lawsuit filed Thursday several some years after Republican leaders moved to block Medicaid dollars to the abortion provider.
Planned Parenthood referred to the lawsuit as “another political attack” in Texas. Texas is where the majority of abortions are prohibited under an amendment to the law that was approved by the U.S Supreme Court.
The funds Texas is trying to recover from Planned Parenthood did not pay for abortion services — which don’t receive public funds — but did cover cancer screenings access to birth control, cancer screenings and other health services. Planned Parenthood previously estimated that 11,000.
Republicans across the U.S. launched efforts to cut off funding to Planned Parenthood in 2015 over secretly recorded and heavily edited videos filmed by anti-abortion activists. Texas health officials were accused by Planned Motherhood of lying to investigators. They began the process of taking its clinics out of the Medicaid program.
13 states have completed investigations into the videos, but no criminal charges have been filed against Planned Parenthood.
Planned Parenthood was involved in a long-running battle for its removal from Medicaid and eventually was unsuccessful. Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton is now arguing before a federal judge in Amarillo that Planned Parenthood was not entitled to keep the over $10 million in reimbursements, while battling the decision.
Planned Parenthood only served less than a quarter of the 4.3 million people who were enrolled in Medicaid in Texas.
