Withhold Medicaid funds from states requiring abortion coverage
What the document says“HHS/CMS should withdraw appropriated funding, up to and including 10 percent of Medicaid funds, from states that require abortion insurance coverage.”
The chapter asks that the Justice Department commit to litigating the defense of those funding decisions promptly to the Supreme Court, in order to maximize the department's ability to withdraw funds from entities it says violate the Weldon Amendment, which bars discrimination against health entities that decline to provide abortion.
What the document actually says“HHS/CMS should withdraw appropriated funding, up to and including 10 percent of Medicaid funds, from states that require abortion insurance coverage.”
Some states make plans cover abortion. Take back some of their health money.
Medicaid pays for health care for poor people. Some states make insurance cover abortion. The book says those states should lose part of that money.
Making further consolidated appropriations for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2026, and for other purposes
2026-02-03 · 140 Stat. 173
Section 507(d) of Public Law 119-75 provides that none of the funds made available in the act may be made available to a federal agency or program, or to a state or local government, if that agency, program or government subjects any institutional or individual health care entity to discrimination on the basis that the entity does not provide, pay for, provide coverage of, or refer for abortions, and defines health care entity to include a health insurance plan. That is the provision the chapter builds its proposal on, and it makes loss of federal money the consequence for a state. The fit breaks down in that it is a condition carried in an appropriations act rather than a decision by the department to withdraw funds, it reaches the funds made available in that act rather than Medicaid by name and sets no 10 percent figure, it turns on discrimination against a health care entity rather than on a state requiring abortion coverage as such, and nothing indexed here applies it to any state.
A 2026 spending law cuts off its funds to a state that punishes a health provider. The provider must have refused to take part in abortions. That makes lost federal money the price for a state. But it is a term in a spending law, it does not name Medicaid, and no state has faced it.