WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — It's known on Capitol Hill as the "Big, Beautiful Bill," but some advocates raise concerns that the legislation will bring a big burden upon community health care providers.
"This is just a broad attack on, you know, on low-income communities," said Alexis McGill Johnson, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Action Fund, in an interview with WPTV.
"The impact of it, to be clear, is that it will be a backdoor abortion ban."
WATCH: Provision in spending bill would affect reproductive health access
McGill Johnson pointed to a provision on page 486 of the 549-page spending bill.
It prohibits federal money from going to tax-exempt organizations that have received more than $800,000 in federal health care dollars in 2023 and are "primarily engaged in family planning services, reproductive health, and related medical care; and provides for abortions" — in cases that don't involve rape or incest, or threaten the life of the mother.
The language doesn’t name Planned Parenthood, but she’s confident that it was written with the organization in mind.
“They couldn't call out Planned Parenthood by name, because that would put them afoul of a rule in the Senate that doesn't allow them to 'target’ entities,” McGill Johnson said. “But the reality is, [House] Speaker [Mike] Johnson spoke to the anti-abortion lobby before this provision was introduced in the House bill, and he called it — ‘We are going to defund big abortion.’”
Federal law already prohibits Medicaid from paying for abortions, with narrow exceptions. However, the new provision would prohibit Medicaid from paying for any health care at Planned Parenthood.
McGill Johnson says if the bill passes as is, about 200 of the roughly 600 Planned Parenthood clinics nationwide would be at risk of closing. Most of them would be in states with fewer abortion restrictions.
While Florida’s clinics face a lower risk of closure, regional Planned Parenthood employees worry the state’s Medicaid patients would be cut off from health care.
State
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"Oftentimes, folks in our community, particularly, seek out Planned Parenthood because we prioritize seeing patients who are under-resourced, uninsured or underinsured," said Dr. Chelsea Daniels, a physician at Planned Parenthood in Miami. "So everything from sexually transmitted infection testing and treatment and birth control and cervical cancer screenings, prenatal care, wellness checks."
Planned Parenthood clinics in Palm Beach and St. Lucie counties treated more than 11,500 patients in the past year, according to data kept by the organization.
Research from the Guttmacher Institute, a group that supports reproductive rights, says local hospitals that offer contraceptive care would need to increase their capacity by 53% to provide those services to patients who can no longer get it at Planned Parenthood.
Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, a group that opposes abortion, publicly praised the provision in the spending bill.
"This is an industry that should not be getting our money, and it's long past time to cut off the federal taxpayer faucet," Katie Glenn Daniel, the group’s director of legal affairs and policy council, told WPTV in an interview. "There are many other authentic health care providers who provide a full spectrum range of service, much broader than what abortion businesses are doing."
The offices of Sens. Rick Scott and Ashley Moody did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
