Amid the prospect of Republicans finally making good on their pledge to repeal the health care law, anti-choicers can almost taste the prospect of finally dooming Planned Parenthood funding. Oh, the joy. Not only could some 30 million Americans lose their health insurance, but those women least likely to be able to afford an alternative will also be deprived of access to life-saving health screenings, family planning services, and birth control. Isn't it glorious? Tierney Sneed writes:
While even the earliest steps to push the larger legislation through again has been subject to all sorts of squabbles, a top anti-abortion group says that they are “really confident” that this time, a measure to block Medicaid payments to Planned Parenthood will become law.
“I am sure that things are going to continue to move around,” said Mallory Quigley, a spokeswoman for Susan B. Anthony List, an anti-abortion group focused on supporting the movement’s allied politicians. “But we are confident that this is something that the leadership has said that it will do and this is something that [President-elect Donald] Trump said he would do and now that all the pieces are falling into place.”
The latest piece to fall was House Speaker Paul Ryan's (R-WI) confirmation at a press conference last week that the Planned Parenthood defund provision would be a part of the legislative vehicle, known as reconciliation, that Republicans intend to use to repeal Obamacare.
Of course, health care repeal is starting to run into a few snags of its own—with Paul Ryan even conceding Tuesday that Republicans will have to come up with a replacement plan alongside repeal. And with the vote margins growing ever tighter in both the House and the Senate, defunding Planned Parenthood might actually kill the chances of achieving repeal by turning off slightly saner Republicans from voting for it.
Sad face.