A network of family planning clinics in Maine will remain without Medicaid funding as it challenges Trump administration restrictions on abortion providers, a federal judge ruled Monday.
The decision leaves Maine Family Planning unable to access reimbursements that support thousands of low-income patients during the course of its lawsuit.
Why It Matters
The cuts stem from President Donald Trump‘s flagship congressional reconciliation package, known as the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which barred Medicaid dollars from going to Planned Parenthood.
But the law’s cuts weren’t limited to Planned Parenthood, which is the nation’s largest reproductive health care provider.
Smaller organizations, like Maine Family Planning, which operates 18 clinics in the state, were also swept up in the cuts. The group provides affordable reproductive health care, primary care and other services to people across Maine, which is one of the poorest and most rural states in the Northeast.
What To Know
Maine Family Planning argued that the Trump administration’s cuts unfairly targeted its operations even though Medicaid funds do not cover abortion care, which makes up only a fraction of its services.
“It’s unfair to cut off funding for the clinics solely because Congress wanted to defund Planned Parenthood,” an attorney for the provider told the court earlier this month.
But U.S. District Judge Lance Walker, who was appointed by Trump in 2018, ruled that Medicaid payments will not resume while the case is ongoing.
His decision came despite a ruling last month by another federal judge requiring that Planned Parenthood clinics across the U.S. continue receiving Medicaid reimbursements while their legal fight with the Trump administration plays out.
That court battle is still underway.
Earlier this month, Emily Hall, a lawyer for the Department of Justice, defended the administration’s cuts in court, telling Walker that Congress has the authority to withhold funds from abortion providers, even when they provide other health care services.
“The rational basis is not simply to reduce the number of abortions, it’s to ensure the federal government is not paying out money to organizations that provide abortions,” Hall said.
Supporters of Maine Family Planning, meanwhile, emphasize that its clinics deliver essential care far beyond abortion. Services include contraception, cervical cancer screenings and primary care for roughly 8,000 low-income patients statewide. Losing Medicaid reimbursements, they argue, would devastate access to affordable health care.
The impact is “nothing short of catastrophic,” Meetra Mehdizadeh, an attorney for the Center for Reproductive Rights, said in court earlier this month.
The network previously warned that without Medicaid dollars, it could be forced to halt primary care services by the end of October.
While the Trump administration’s push centered on defunding Planned Parenthood, the bill avoided naming the organization directly. Instead, it barred reimbursements to providers primarily engaged in family planning services that received more than $800,000 from Medicaid in 2023.
Maine Family Planning argues the threshold was lowered specifically to ensure the cuts extended beyond Planned Parenthood, making it the only other organization so far to acknowledge its funding is at risk.
What People Are Saying
George Hill, the president and CEO of Maine Family Planning, said in a statement to Newsweek: “This ruling is a devastating setback for Mainers who depend on us for basic primary care. The loss of Medicaid funds—which nearly half our patients rely on—threatens our ability to provide life-saving services to communities across the state. Mainers’ health should never be jeopardized by political decisions, and we will continue to fight for them.”
Nancy Northup, president and CEO at the Center for Reproductive Rights, said in a statement provided to Newsweek: “This ruling means that thousands of Mainers across the state may lose access to their trusted health provider for essential health care services, including cancer screenings, birth control, and primary care at Maine Family Planning.
She added, “The Trump Administration and Congress would rather topple a statewide health safety network than let low-income patients receive a cancer screening at a clinic that also offers abortions. This ruling takes a sledgehammer to an already overstretched health care network, and Mainers statewide will feel the effects of defunding Maine Family Planning, regardless of their insurance status.”
https://www.newsweek.com/trump-judge-medicaid-abortion-providers-maine-2118945
