Right there with them
U.S. District Court Judge Sam Sparks on Thursday delayed Planned Parenthood’s ouster from the state’s Medicaid program until Feb. 21.
[…]
During closing arguments Thursday hearing, attorneys from both sides cited clips from the video. Sparks said he wanted all involved to review the video footage and present their findings to him Jan. 30.
“I don’t know if I’ll be able to give an opinion [without further review of the video],” Sparks said.
During the final day of testimony, the state continued to make its case that Medicaid patients would still have access to health services without Planned Parenthood’s help.
Jami Snyder, associate commissioner for Medicaid and CHIP, said on the stand that there were 141,000 providers available in the program, including 29,000 primary care physicians and 3,300 OBGYNs. She said the program has “a very robust network” thanks to strict network adequacy requirements for the managed care organizations that help with Medicaid and patients have a variety of tools to help them find a new doctor. She said the available providers dwarf Planned Parenthood’s presence.
“What we know to be true is that a variety of providers in our network offer family planning services,” Snyder said.
But Planned Parenthood lawyers pressed Snyder on provider availability, forcing her to admit she was unsure if all of the Medicaid providers offer weekend hours or walk-in appointments like the reproductive health organization does. Snyder also admitted Medicaid providers do not necessarily offer the exact same services as Planned Parenthood.
Snyder also elicited gasps in the courtroom when she admitted she did not know about surging maternal mortality rates in Texas.
See here and here for the background. The video in question is of course the bullshit Center for Medical Progress video. Way to be on top of breaking women’s health news there, Jami Snyder! With skills like that I don’t know how you weren’t picked to head up HHS in Washington. Trail Blazers, the Current, Newsdesk, and the Chron have more.