5,000 Colorado Medicaid patients who used Planned Parenthood must find new doctors

DENVER — Despite congressional Republicans’ stated intention to “defund” Planned Parenthood, the reproductive-health nonprofit expects to hold on in Colorado — though about 5,000 people who received primary care at its clinics will need to find new doctors.

H.R. 1, the GOP-backed tax-and-spending law previously known as the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, prohibits Medicaid payments for one year to nonprofit organizations that provide abortions and also received at least $800,000 in federal funding in 2023.

The sweeping law also extends President Donald Trump’s 2017 tax cuts, increases spending on border security and reduces funding for Medicaid and food assistance.

Congress prohibits agencies from using federal money to pay for abortions, unless the mother’s life is at risk or the pregnancy results from rape or incest. But federal money usually can pay for other types of care, such as testing for sexually transmitted diseases and cancer screening, at clinics that also perform abortions.

The tax law doesn’t name Planned Parenthood, but, so far, the only other organization that reports being affected is a group of health centers in Maine. Jack Teter, vice president of government affairs for Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains, said he believes its affiliates are the only health centers blocked from seeing Medicaid patients in Colorado.

Planned Parenthood clinics in Colorado have stopped seeing patients covered by Medicaid and referred them to other providers, Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains CEO Adrienne Mansanares said. State law doesn’t allow providers to take cash payments from people covered by Medicaid, so Planned Parenthood has no choice but to cancel their appointments, she said.

A federal judge in Massachusetts put the provision in the tax law on hold for two weeks, but the legal landscape is too unsettled to schedule patients covered by Medicaid, Mansanares said. They’ve canceled “hundreds” of appointments since Trump signed the bill on July 4, she said.

“A 14-day injunction that could be overruled tomorrow or tonight isn’t helpful operationally,” she said Thursday.

About 5,000 people covered by Medicaid in Colorado have one of Planned Parenthood’s locations designated as their primary care provider, said Marc Williams, spokesman for the Colorado Department of Health Care Policy and Financing.

The state is working to connect those people with other providers, he said.

Between 11,000 and 14,000 Medicaid members receive care from Planned Parenthood at least once in a typical year, either in a clinic or via telehealth, Williams said. Last year, people in 62 of the state’s 64 counties used Planned Parenthood, he said.

A transgender Medicaid patient who had an annual check-up scheduled at Planned Parenthood in Colorado Springs this week said he was frustrated to learn he’d have to find a new provider. He spoke on the condition of anonymity to preserve his privacy because not everyone knows he is transgender.

Planned Parenthood is a popular place for transgender patients because the doctors are familiar with their needs and the clinics have security, which protects them from violence, the patient said. But having to find a new provider is difficult for anyone covered by Medicaid because so many doctors don’t accept it, he said.

“It’s just frustrating to constantly lose appointments, doctors, options,” he said.

Colorado clinics expect to stay open

Planned Parenthood has 11 clinics in Colorado, including in two Denver neighborhoods, Arvada, Aurora, Boulder, Colorado Springs, Cortez, Fort Collins, Glenwood Springs, Greeley and Salida.

Most of those clinics have at least one facility offering federally funded sexual health services to low-income people nearby, but residents of Cortez, Glenwood Springs and Salida would have to drive at least 30 miles, according to ReproductiveHealthServices.gov.

Primary care providers can also provide services such as prescribing birth control and screening for cervical cancer.

States and regions will vary in how well they can absorb patients who previously sought sexual health care and cancer screenings at Planned Parenthood, said Alina Salganicoff, senior director of the women’s health program at KFF, a nonprofit that studies the health care system.

Federally qualified health centers can offer those services to patients on Medicaid, as can state and local health departments, but those facilities may not be nearby for people who used to go to Planned Parenthood, she said.

Dr. Rebecca Cohen, an obstetrician who treats high-risk patients in the Denver area, said on a panel with Democratic Sen. John Hickenlooper on Wednesday that Medicaid patients may have to wait longer for care as those who sought treatment at Planned Parenthood increase demand on other providers in their communities.

“We don’t know the full scope of it. We know that it is not good,” she said.

Colorado voters allowed state funding for Medicaid recipients’ abortions when they passed Amendment 79 last year, but Planned Parenthood still can’t provide that care to anyone enrolled in Medicaid because of the tax law’s wording, Mansanares said.

Planned Parenthood affiliates in other regions have expressed concerns about cutting services or closing clinics without the ability to bill Medicaid, but Colorado’s tradition of donations to support abortion and other sexual health care makes that a less likely concern, Mansanares said.

If anything, Planned Parenthood’s Colorado clinics may need to keep adding providers and hours to accommodate patients driving from out-of-state for gender-affirming care or abortions, she said.

“What this law does is harm Medicaid patients,” she said.

Efforts to restrict public funding

Protesters outside of the Planned Parenthood clinic in Denver’s Park Hill neighborhood on Thursday said they didn’t expect much impact from cutting off Medicaid funding for non-abortion services. People don’t like their tax dollars going to an abortion provider, but Planned Parenthood’s wealthy donors won’t let it go under, said Terry Sullivan, of Denver.

“I doubt seriously that Planned Parenthood is going to run out of funds any time soon,” he said.

Ultimately, Planned Parenthood won’t stop providing abortions unless the procedure is fully banned, said Susan Sutherland of Thornton, who carried a sign with a picture of a fetus.

The new law is only the latest effort to restrict public funding to Planned Parenthood.

A Supreme Court ruling in late June effectively allowed states to cut the organization, or other providers, out of their Medicaid programs. The court determined, in a 6-3 decision, that Medicaid recipients can’t sue their states for denying them their choice of providers.

In March, the Trump administration announced it would withhold Title X funding, which covers contraception and family planning services other than abortion for low-income people, from 16 providers, nine of which were Planned Parenthood affiliates. The administration said it was investigating whether any of the providers had used the money for efforts related to diversity, equity and inclusion.

Colorado’s Planned Parenthood locations don’t participate in Title X.

Rep. Diana DeGette, a Democrat representing Denver in Congress, said Thursday that she doesn’t think most Republicans truly want to take away access to cancer screenings and other routine health care. She said she believes the law unconstitutionally singles out Planned Parenthood, but will continue working in Congress to change it while the lawsuit plays out.

“You have a lot of friends in Washington now, and we’re going to fight to get this fixed,” she said during a visit to the Park Hill clinic Thursday.

Given the current composition of the Supreme Court, Mansanares said she isn’t optimistic about the lawsuit’s chances, regardless of the injunction. The current justices overturned the nationwide right to an abortion with the Dobbs v. Jackson decision in 2022.

“Our assumption is that it will be taken up, and we’ll be back where we were July 4,” she said.

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