U.S. Supreme Court justices will hear arguments Wednesday about whether South Carolina can remove Planned Parenthood clinics from the state’s Medicaid program because they offer abortions in a case that could imperil health care options for patients with low incomes.
At the center of the lawsuit is a conflict over whether a section of the Medicaid Act gives people who use Medicaid the right to choose their providers.
“While it might be just South Carolina’s name on this court case, it will have huge impacts nationwide,” said Vicki Ringer, Planned Parenthood South Atlantic’s director of public affairs in the state. “It will allow all of these red states that have been trying so hard to close down Planned Parenthood, and it will take away medical care for so many low-income people throughout our region of the country.”
Opponents of Planned Parenthood said Republican South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster should be able to direct Eunice Medina, the new head of the state Department of Health and Human Services, to remove the organization’s Charleston and Columbia clinics from the list of qualified Medicaid providers.
If the court rules broadly, it could allow other states to make the same move — and some already have. The case is also part of a broader strategy across the country to drain Planned Parenthood funding for all services, including reproductive health care aside from abortion. Efforts by abortion-rights opponents to do so go back decades in the United States.
Republican President Donald Trump’s administration has taken interest in the case, Medina v. Planned Parenthood South Atlantic. The acting U.S. solicitor general will argue in favor of South Carolina health officials during a portion of the Supreme Court hearing this week.
Lawyers for Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative advocacy firm instrumental in majoranti-abortion cases that have appeared before the Supreme Court, represent South Carolina officials in the lawsuit.
“This case is about whether states have the flexibility to direct Medicaid monies to best benefit low-income women and families,” John Bursch, senior counsel and vice president of appellate advocacy at Alliance Defending Freedom, said in an email.
Planned Parenthood’s two South Carolinaclinics offer abortion up to six weeks in compliance with state law. But staff also provide birth control, emergency contraception, prenatal and postpartum exams and STI testing and treatment, among other services.
“Being able to deny Medicaid patients the ability to select their own qualified provider tells low-income women, especially, that once again ‘You’re not important. Your decision-making doesn’t matter. We are here to decide for you what is best,’” Ringer said.
The picture in South Carolina
McMaster’s executive order against clinics that also offer abortions — deeming them “unqualified to provide family planning services” — has been blocked by lower courts since 2018. Throughout a nearly seven-year court battle, appellate judges have repeatedly ruled in favor of Planned Parenthood South Atlantic, and the Supreme Court has rejected requests to take up the case — until now.
“South Carolina has made it clear that we value the right to life. Therefore, taxpayers should not be forced to subsidize abortion providers who are in direct opposition to their beliefs,” McMaster said in a Feb. 10 statement.
Nearly half — 48% — of South Carolinians surveyed in May 2024 oppose the six-week ban that’s in place, while 31% support it, and the rest were not sure or refused to answer, according to a Winthrop University poll last year.
Arguments in the case over Medicaid funding for South Carolina Planned Parenthood clinics are unfolding against a backdrop of ongoing efforts to drain funding state by state, and in Congress. (Photo by Skylar Laird/SC Daily Gazette)
Ringer said South Carolina lawmakers’ anti-abortion positions are at odds with residents’ views on the issue.
“It’s political pandering, but it’s to a population that doesn’t agree with them,” she said. “They think because they’re elected, then that means we’re an anti-abortion, so-called ‘pro-life’ state.”
Like many states, South Carolina only allows Medicaid coverage of abortion in cases of rape, incest or to save a patient’s life.
Julia Walker, a spokesperson for the regional affiliate, said 10% of patients who routinely visit the South Carolina clinics for family-planning services use Medicaid.
Just 0.2% — $88,464 — of the $35 million the state spent on Medicaid-covered family-planning services went to Planned Parenthood in the 2022-2023 fiscal year, SC Daily Gazette reported. Medicaid is a reimbursement program, meaning providers foot the bill and seek at least partial reimbursement for an appointment or procedure.
A case study in Texas
Arkansas, Missouri and Texas — Republican-led states — have ended some clinics’ Medicaid eligibility for reproductive health care services because they provided abortions at one time or are affiliated with Planned Parenthood.
Still, clinic doors remain open in those states, despite ongoing lawsuits and right-wing wrangling that blocked Medicaid patients.
“Let’s be clear about where Texas was even before they cut Planned Parenthood out of Medicaid,” said Melaney Linton, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast, which still has six locations in the greater Houston area. “Texas already was suffering some of the nation’s worst rates of maternal and infant mortality, and highest under and uninsured populations.”
Most of Houston is in Harris County, an area that has one of the highest Black maternal death rates nationwide. Black women in the county had a pregnancy-related mortality rate of 83.4 deaths per 100,000 live births from 2016 to 2020, according to a report last year.
The maternal mortality rate in Texas from 2018 to 2021 was 28.1, compared with 23.5 nationwide, according to federal data.
A judge ruled in March 2021 that Texas could stop Planned Parenthood from receiving Medicaid funds. Linton said the state’s actions cut off an estimated 8,000 Planned Parenthood patients.
“Politicians like to talk about how they care about women and infants and families,” Linton said. “If they did, they would do everything they can to make sure that women have more access to birth control, not less.”
Six months after Texas suspended Planned Parenthood’s Medicaid funds for reproductive health care services, the state enacted a six-week abortion ban. Teen birth rates skyrocketed in Harris County and across the entire Lonestar State for the first time in 15 years, data shows.
Linton said what happens in Texas is often replicated in other parts of the country, and the same will probably hold true for the South Carolina case before the U.S. Supreme Court this week.
“Every American should be concerned about that,” she said.
But public clinics are struggling financially, said Dr. Katherine Farris, the chief medical officer at Planned Parenthood in the Carolinas and the Virginias, in a news conference Friday. A patient may have to wait three months for an intrauterine device appointment at some of them, but at Planned Parenthood, she said, the patient can walk in and get an IUD insertion the same day.
Ringer and Linton also said finding a provider that accepts Medicaid and can see a new patient promptly is not so simple.
“Doctors who at one time did take Medicaid aren’t anymore. It is a losing prospect for many providers,” Ringer said. “I’ve seen what Medicaid reimburses, and for many of the services we provide, we lose money on them. But because we are a safety-net provider, that means we provide care to people no matter what. If you can or can’t pay, we are going to take care of you.”
South Carolina and Texas are 2 of 10 states that have not expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act passed in 2010, Stateline reported.
When Planned Parenthood’s Texas affiliates were removed from Medicaid eligibility, Linton said the Gulf Coast staff tried to connect their Medicaid patients to other health care providers.
“Unfortunately, what our patients told us is that sometimes it took them three months or more calling around the 20 or 30 practices to find someone who would even take them. Many times they didn’t provide the birth control method that that patient had been accustomed to receiving,” Linton said.
Bursch and other Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys argue that if Planned Parenthood stopped providing abortions in South Carolina, Medicaid funding could be restored.
Planned Parenthood Federation of America attorney Catherine Peyton Humphreville said that South Carolina does allow some abortions to be provided in the state.
“At no point has anyone asserted that Planned Parenthood South Atlantic is not complying with South Carolina law,” Humphreville said.
No one has questioned the quality of care that the organization provides, they said, and the idea that Planned Parenthood can be punished for simply advocating abortion “has serious First Amendment issues.”
On Capitol Hill
Anti-abortion Republicans in Congress are pushing bills to “defund Planned Parenthood” and other abortion providers, including independent clinics, nationwide. Unlike previous sessions when Congress faced gridlock, legislation could advance this year given the GOP trifecta of power in Washington, D.C.
U.S. Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley filed legislation on Jan. 16 that would prohibit federal funding from going to organizations that provide abortions, referrals and the like, with the stated intention of cutting funds from “Planned Parenthood and abortion providers across the nation.” A 2019 rule passed by the Trump administration blocked $60 million in federal funds from flowing to the organization, Hawley said, before the rule was rescinded under Biden.
The Hyde Amendment, a provision approved annually by Congress since 1977, already prevents federal funds from covering the costs of abortion unless the pregnancy stemmed from rape or incest, or the patient could die in child birth.
Planned Parenthood Federation of America President and CEO Alexis McGill Johnson said the organization is prepared to defend itself from both state-level and national attacks.
“The most immediate focus is going to be on the Medicaid defund [bills] in Congress, and that has a direct tie to the Supreme Court case,” McGill Johnson said. “That fight looks like doing everything we can to defeat, delay, to litigate, to mitigate every effort that is trying to put sexual and reproductive health care out of reach.”
Last updated 5:11 p.m., Mar. 28, 2025
Florida Phoenix is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Florida Phoenix maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Michael Moline for questions: info@floridaphoenix.com.
www.news4jax.com – Janie Har, Associated Press – 2025-03-31 17:14:00
SUMMARY: A federal judge in San Francisco temporarily blocked the Trump administration’s plan to end Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for 350,000 Venezuelans, just a week before their protections were set to expire. Judge Edward Chen ruled that ending TPS would cause irreparable harm and disrupt lives, families, and the U.S. economy. The case, filed by the National TPS Alliance, argues that the actions of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem were unauthorized and discriminatory. Noem had also planned to end TPS for 250,000 additional Venezuelans in September. The ruling applies nationwide, giving the government one week to file an appeal.
Four months after Florida Supreme Court Justice Carlos Muñiz blasted the Florida Public Service Commission (PSC) for not providing enough information to justify a public utility rate increase, the chairman of the PSC attempted to defend his agency before a Senate committee on Monday.
The PSC is a five-member board appointed by the governor and confirmed by the Senate that is responsible for facilitating safe and reliable utility services at fair prices. According to its own website, the commission “must balance the needs of a utility and its shareholders with the needs of consumers.”
Mike La Rosa, the sitting PSC Chair who was initially appointed to serve on the Commission by Gov. Ron DeSantis in 2021, came before the Senate Ethics & Election Committee seeking conformation to another four-year term.
Northeast GOP Sen. Jennifer Bradley asked him to respond to the thrust of Muñiz comments, expressed in December as the court heard arguments in an appeal of a 2023 PSC order approving rates for Florida City Gas. The Chief Justice criticized the PSC for not providing nearly enough information to justify a rate increase, after the PSC’s own staff recommended that they not approve the increase.
“That is my problem with these cases. It’s a black box. And administrative procedure is not supposed to be [a black box]. It’s supposed to be the opposite of a black box. That’s the only justification for this whole mousetrap is to have reasoned explanations for fact-based decisions. And, instead, we get a regurgitation of the evidence and then like, ‘Oh, because so-and-so said this, we think that this is appropriate. We’re done.’ That is literally every order that we see from the PSC.”
“That is an alarming statement for me as a legislator to hear from our chief justice of our Florida Supreme Court,” Bradley said Monday.
La Rosa replied that while he couldn’t explain why the PSC didn’t provide more information in their orders in the past, that began changing in 2023 (he began serving as chair of the commission that November).
“Our chairman at the time, I think, guided us down the right path to make sure that our legal staff responded in a way that satisfied and frankly provided a better product of what the Supreme Court is looking for,” La Rosa said.
He added that commission orders have been of a higher quality ever since. But he said he could not defend why earlier orders were written the way they were. He also said that since that time the commissioners have stepped up their public comments from the dais during rate hike hearings, as well.
Broward County Democratic Sen. Mack Bernard asked why the PSC wasn’t providing the Supreme Court with meaningful information. La Rosa said he couldn’t really provide an “answer that’s satisfactory.” He added “that they should always have had the backup and the history and the depth of knowledge that we currently have.”
Committee Chairman Don Gates quoted another part of Muñiz’s comments, that “the Public Service Commission appeared to rely largely on what utilities told them, ‘as opposed to any facts and evidence.’” Gaetz asked whether La Rosa could give two or three examples of the last time his commission turned down a utility rate increase.
La Rosa countered that there wasn’t a single case he could remember when the PSC approved what the utility was exactly asking for.
“There are elements what the company is asking for that we do approve, but there are certain modifications that we make after we litigate and after we make the case,” he said, adding that he couldn’t remember the last time a public utility made a request that the PSC granted exactly.
Gaetz cited criticism that he has heard that utilities start out by asking for extraordinarily high rate increases that they expect won’t be approved, but use as leverage to bargain to get the rate increase that they really coveted.
“That might be what the company is asking for, but it also may not be,” La Rosa responded.
Gaetz is sponsoring a bill this session (SB 354) to tighten PSC requirements for deciding the return on equity levels to which utilities are entitled. Miami-Dade County Republican Bryan Avila asked La Rosa whether the commission factors in potential compensation, benefits, or bonuses for utility executives.
“Probably every single time,” La Rosa said.
The committee ultimately unanimously approved La Rosa’s confirmation to serve on the PSC for another four years, but not before both Bradley and Gaetz both got a last word in.
“This was a situation that really was a black eye and I want to make sure that going forward that’s not the case,” Bradley said. “That, going forward, things are different.”
PSC put on notice
Gaetz added that next year the PSC and the public will likely see legislation similar to what he proposed this year regarding how much investor-owned public utilities can earn. “If you see it, it will be based on the commission’s performance between now and next year. And if the commission was a little troubled by the legislation this year, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet.”
Last December wasn’t the first time the Florida Supreme Court Chief Justice has bashed the PSC for what he said were inadequate orders. In 2023, he questioned whether the commission had adequately justified the approval of a 2021 legal settlement that increased base electric rates for Florida Power & Light.
“There’s no explanation whatsoever for the PSC’s thinking on how it got to approving this,” Muñiz said at the time.
“From a judicial review perspective and from a matter of the PSC complying with its obligations, how can the order not address the major issues that are in dispute in a way that allows us to kind of have a window into what the rational process was that led to the finding that it was in the public interest?”
La Rosa will ultimately need to be confirmed by the entire Senate to stay on for another four-year term.
YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE.
SUPPORT
Florida Phoenix is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Florida Phoenix maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Michael Moline for questions: info@floridaphoenix.com.
www.thecentersquare.com – By Steve Wilson | The Center Square – (The Center Square – ) 2025-03-31 13:00:00
(The Center Square) – Property property tax relief for Floridians through $5.1 billion in a proposed sales tax cut is being sought by Gov. Ron DeSantis.
He wants lawmakers to issue $1,000 for each of about 5.1 million homesteaded properties in the state. The rebates would be issued in December, covering state-mandated school property taxes, which he says would prevent a loss in funding for districts.
The state House of Representatives proposed reducing the state’s sales tax from 6% to 5.25% on Wednesday.
DeSantis added a state-level version of the Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency should examine local budgets to determine savings that can be passed to homeowners being hit by rising assessments on property values.
“Of all the taxes impacting Floridians, property taxes are the most significant,” DeSantis said. “So when you’re doing proposals, whether it’s working with the Legislature, whether it’s putting something on the ballot, to me, the threshold question is the tax relief needs to be Florida first.
“We need to focus on our Florida residents and to focus on in this case, Florida homeowners, particularly our homesteaded homeowners and we need to focus our relief there.”
The second-term Republican governor and former presidential candidate said he wants a ballot initiative aimed at lower property taxes on the 2026 ballot that he says will provide “robust protections” for homeowners in the state constitution.
He also said property taxes are an anomaly because these taxes aren’t voluntary consumption based and basically mean homeowners are paying “rent” to the government for their property, even if the mortgage is fully paid.
“I know people that bought their homes for $250,000 30 years ago and now they’re assessed at over a million dollars. That’s not something out of the ordinary,” DeSantis said. “That’s a source of wealth if you’re free and clear of the mortgage, but one of the drawbacks is in the form of property taxes and so people have seen that even with a homestead exemption that has not be enough to be able to protect people against these rising assessments.”
