Planned Parenthood defunding expires: one-year Medicaid ban lifts, but fight to restore access continues

The one-year Medicaid defunding of Planned Parenthood, enacted as section 71113 of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) on July 4, 2025, has now expired. During that year, it blocked Medicaid payments to any nonprofit essential community provider that offers abortion services (except in cases of rape, incest, or life endangerment) and received over $800,000 in federal-state Medicaid reimbursements in 2023—effectively targeting Planned Parenthood affiliates. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimated that this provision would increase federal spending by $53 million over the ten-year budget period, because disrupting care at Planned Parenthood clinics—which provide preventive screenings, contraception, STI testing, and primary care—leads to more expensive emergency care and lost coordination (CBO publication 61570, July 21, 2025; Georgetown CCF, July 22, 2025). The Georgetown Center for Children and Families (CCF) documented that the ban risked permanent clinic closures, disproportionately harming Black and Latina women in Medicaid expansion states, and noted that CBO also found a $28.2 billion reduction in federal spending from other OBBBA Medicaid provisions (Georgetown CCF, July 22, 2025).

The expiration is a temporary reprieve, not a permanent victory. Anti-abortion groups have already introduced legislation to make the ban permanent (Pappas, July 30, 2025). The fight over whether federal healthcare programs can exclude a provider based on abortion services remains squarely alive. The evidence from the defunding year is clear: blocking Planned Parenthood from Medicaid did not reduce abortion rates—it reduced access to contraception, cancer screenings, and STI testing, and increased costs for taxpayers and states. Defenders of reproductive health access must now work to codify protections that prevent any future provider-specific bans, ensuring that Medicaid patients retain their right to choose their own healthcare provider regardless of the services that provider also offers.