Texas Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison defended the work Planned Parenthood does in Texas Thursday morning in an interview on MSNBC. Hutchison expressed her concern over a Texas law that will cost the state participation in the federally funded Medicaid Women’s Health Program. By excluding Planned Parenthood as a recipient, the law breaks the conditions under which the government issues millions of dollars in funding for women’s reproductive care.
HUTCHISON: We cannot afford to lose the Medicaid funding for low-income women to have health care services. We cannot. We can’t keep turning back federal funds that every state gets and then try to find money in our budget, which is already being cut in key areas like education. I do think that the governor needs to sit down with the federal government and work it out so that we can have our share — our fair share not more — of money for Medicaid to help low-income women have their health care services.
TODD: So it sounds like you think he should not be excluding Planned Parenthood?
HUTCHISON: I think Planned Parenthood does mammograms, they do so much of the health care — the preventive health care and if they’re doing that, we need to provide those services, absolutely.
