Today, U.S. Rep. Harold "Hal" Rogers (KY-05) voted for the Women's Public Health and Safety Act(H.R. 3495) to ensure that States can elect to exclude abortion providers, like Planned Parenthood, from receiving Medicaid payments. 

"Our states should have the authority to decide whether taxpayer dollars can be spent by an organization that allegedly profits from selling body parts and organs of aborted babies. There are numerous other women's health providers worthy of federal support that protect life, rather than destroy it," said Congressman Rogers, a long-time member of the Congressional Pro-Life Caucus. "This legislation would allow states to exclude abortion clinics from the list of Medicaid providers, except in cases resulting from rape or incest, or those when the mother's life is endangered." 

According to a recent Government Accountability Office report, Planned Parenthood received about $1.2 billion through Medicaid over a three-year period. In 2013 alone, Planned Parenthood used those funds to perform more than 327,000 abortions, averaging one abortion every three minutes.  

Some states legislatures have requested the flexibility to choose to withhold Medicaid funds from flowing to abortion providers, if they so choose. This bill would exclude those providers from Medicaid's "free choice of qualified providers" so that States can shift those funds to other community health centers that provide women's health services.

Along with passage of this legislation, the House also passed two separate bills earlier this month to protect the life of unborn babies. Rogers joined his colleagues in voting for the Defund Planned Parenthood Act of 2015 (H.R. 3134) and the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act (H.R. 3504). 

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