Would bar women from using Medicaid at Planned Parenthood.
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A federal hearing officer on Tuesday ruled an Indiana law illegal that would have barred low-income women from using Medicaid to receive any kind of reproductive care from Planned Parenthood. The law was deemed illegal because it would deny women the freedom to choose their health-care provider. Tuesday’s hearing upheld an earlier decision by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services of the Department of Health and Human Services, which had ruled that it alters the way Medicaid is run in Indiana, thus making it unacceptable. Federal law already bans women from using Medicaid to pay for abortions, but the Indiana law, signed in 2011 by Gov. Mitch Daniels, had been designed to prevent Planned Parenthood from performing abortions, since it would lose all Medicaid funds.
