As I described in this post Wednesday, the latest judicial decision on the case brought by Planned Parenthood was only a partial reprieve from abortion-related aspects of the Big Beautiful Bill.
Planned Parenthood has 47 regional affiliates, each of which have a number of clinics. The decision issued this week protects 10 of those 47 affiliates temporarily while the case moves through the courts, but the rest are subject to the BBB immediately.
What that means practically is that any affiliate that still offers abortions is now cut off from Medicaid reimbursement money. Some PP clinics, often the smaller and more rural ones, only offer services such as pregnancy tests, STD testing and other non-surgical services. Planned Parenthood is choosing to shutter those clinics rather than stop offering abortions in its larger clinics near population centers. Today, the organization’s largest affiliate in norther California announced it was closing five clinics.
Planned Parenthood Mar Monte permanently shut the doors on five of its Northern California health centers Thursday, saying its hand was forced by President Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill.
The nonprofit is closing its South San Francisco, San Mateo, Gilroy, Westside/Santa Cruz, and Madera locations.
“We really feel like we are in the fight of our life,” said Stacy Cross, president and CEO Planned Parenthood Mar Monte…
The organization also let go of more than 60 staff members at the five centers.
“I’ve been a Planned Parenthood CEO for 24 years at three separate affiliates, and I can tell you this is the really the hardest it’s been in my entire life,” said Cross, noting the closures are a move to financially sustain Planned Parenthood’s future and the future of abortion access.
The SF Chronicle has more on the Mar Monte affiliate’s funding crisis.
In just one week since Mar Monte stopped billing Medicaid, the Planned Parenthood affiliate with 35 locations said it saw 5,000 patients — amounting to about $1.7 million in care costs it covered without reimbursement — Mar Monte Chief of Staff Andrew Adams told the Chronicle Thursday.
“It’s just not sustainable,” said Adams. “We can’t keep our doors open if we continue doing that.”
Mar Monte said the funding law also forced it to end services in family medicine, behavioral health and prenatal care. The Planned Parenthood affiliate estimates it will lose $100 million in annual revenue from care that can no longer be reimbursed under the law because they provide abortion care.
Once these clinics close, the chances of them coming back are pretty slim. It’s much easier to close a clinic than it is to open one up.
County Supervisor Justin Cummings, whose district includes Santa Cruz, called the clinic’s closure “really tragic” and said any attempt to bring it back would be challenging.
“Once you close a facility they have to renegotiate leases, you have to rehire people. It’s going to be more expensive,” he said.
Planned Parenthood is apparently begging the state and past donors for a bailout.
To try to fend off insolvency, Planned Parenthood is in talks with the state for funding and is going back to donors who have opened their wallets to Planned Parenthood before, Adams said. Last year, Mar Monte received $16 million in donations last year, and facing steep cuts in federal funding, it is asking supporters to “dig deeper” than they ever have before.
As I mentioned before, California’s state budget is not in good shape at the moment thanks to Gov. Newsom’s decision to expand Medicaid to illegal immigrants. That decision cost about $12 billion in the first year, substantially more than anticipated, and led to Newsom cutting off new signups in the current budget. The more realistic option might be to have some progressive billionaire, like David Geffen or Steven Spielberg, step in to cover the losses.
The bottom line is that a lot more clinics are going to close permanently in the next few months. PP predicted the number would be 200 nationwide. Even if that turns out to be an exaggeration to goose their donors, the reality will probably be dozens more and, because of the way the bill is structured, most of those will be in blue states.
