INDIANAPOLIS – The one-year federal ban that blocked Medicaid patients from using their insurance at Planned Parenthood has expired, restoring patients’ freedom to choose Planned Parenthood as their provider in most of the country. However, Indiana patients will not share this relief. Because of a separate, state-level ban, Hoosiers on Medicaid still can’t get their care covered at Planned Parenthood health centers even as patients in neighboring states, like Kentucky, regain immediate access.
Planned Parenthood Alliance Advocates–Indiana (PPAA-IN) is calling on Indiana lawmakers to reject the state’s Medicaid exclusion and restore patients’ right to choose their own provider.
The following statement can be attributed to Jennifer M. Allen, Chief Executive Officer, Planned Parenthood Alliance Advocates (PPAA):
“While other states restore Medicaid patients’ access to coverage at Planned Parenthood this month, Indiana is doing all it can to put politics over people and block patients from care. Indiana politicians are hammering Medicaid patients on two fronts at once: a maternal health system already in collapse, and a Medicaid door that state leaders are keeping barricaded shut. This isn’t about abortion; Planned Parenthood has been banned from providing abortion in Indiana since 2022. It’s about whether people with low incomes get to see the provider they trust for essential health care like birth control, cancer screenings, STI testing, and wellness exams. State leaders have made a political decision to cut people off from coverage for care, at a time when Indiana’s health care safety net has already stretched to a breaking point.
“This ‘defund’ has been wildly unpopular, and elected leaders know it, which is why Congress let the federal ban expire ahead of the upcoming midterm elections. That goes to show that Indiana’s supermajority is completely out of touch with its electorate. This is not health policy, it’s politics — and Hoosiers are the ones paying the price. PPAA-IN is calling on lawmakers to undo the state’s Medicaid exclusion and restore Hoosiers’ right to choose their own provider.”
Since the state defunding took effect, Planned Parenthood health centers in Indiana have seen a nearly 20% decline in patient visits, despite a massive lack of alternative options for reproductive health care providers, especially those who take Medicaid. The Braun administration is willing to sacrifice the affordable health care of people across Indiana because of their opposition to abortion, despite Planned Parenthood’s Medicaid work being preventive and essential care, including birth control, STI testing and treatment, cancer screenings (cervical, breast, etc.), wellness exams, HIV testing and prevention, and vaccinations.
We know at PPAA-IN that Planned Parenthood is far more popular than the politicians attacking reproductive health care, so we’ll never stop fighting for access to a full range of sexual and reproductive health care.
