The Hill reports that the House "voted along party lines on Friday to approve a budget reconciliation bill that would repeal parts of ObamaCare and halt federal funding for Planned Parenthood."
Nice, right?
The bill would knock down key pillars of the president’s healthcare law, including the individual and employer mandates and the so-called Cadillac tax and the medical device tax. It would also halt funding to Planned Parenthood for one year.
“We have a responsibility to use every tool we have to dismantle this flawed healthcare scheme, and the bill before us today will do just that,” Rep. John Kline (R-Minn.), who leads one of the committees charged with drafting the bill, said.
“This bill does not repeal all parts of ObamaCare but it certainly repeals egregious parts of it,” he added. ...TheHill
Meanwhile, in Texas, the past several days have seen that state's rightwing government harassing Planned Parenthood's clinics.
Three days after Gov. Greg Abbott announced his decision to end Medicaid funding for Planned Parenthood, state health department investigators showed up on Thursday at Planned Parenthood health centers in Houston, Dallas, San Antonio and Brownsville with orders to turn over thousands of pages of documents, including patients’ records and employees’ home addresses and telephone numbers.
Some, but not all, of the extensive records sought by the state related specifically to abortion.
For example, Planned Parenthood South Texas was told to produce five years of records — whether electronic, paper or ultrasound — concerning any patients billed to Medicaid who had an abortion in which any part of the fetus was removed or preserved for research use. Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast was to turn over a complete copy of certain patients’ records, including doctors’ orders, nursing notes and lab tests, as well as the center’s appointment books, patient sign-in sheets and contracts.
“We’re concerned about the breadth and depth of what they’re asking for,” said Sarah Wheat, a spokeswoman for Planned Parenthood of Greater Texas. ...NYT
