Lansing — Planned Parenthood of Michigan is permanently closing three additional facilities in Michigan due to a decline in federal funding and reimbursements for patient care.
Health centers in Lansing, Livonia and Warren were identified for permanent closure through a statewide review of the organization's network and after other reductions to administrative and non-clinical positions, the group said in a statement Thursday.
"Republicans in Congress have now demonstrated that they are willing to block Medicaid reimbursement for Planned Parenthood patients, and the Trump administration has proposed eliminating the Title X family planning program altogether," Planned Parenthood of Michigan President and CEO Paula Thornton Greear said in a statement.
"We cannot build the future of patient care on federal funding that can be stripped away whenever political power changes hands."
In light of the changing federal policies, Thornton Greear said the group is concentrating resources at regional access points, expanding virtual care and working with counties and the state of Michigan "to build funding it can rely on."
Earlier this month, the Washtenaw County Board of Commissioners voted to give $500,000 to Planned Parenthood, while Oakland County Board of Commissioners Chair Dave Woodward last week proposed about $1.5 million in emergency funding to support Planned Parenthood.
Right to Life of Michigan called the closures and professed lack of funding "shameful political theater" in light of the millions of dollars Planned Parenthood is pushing into election fights across the U.S. during the midterms.
"If Planned Parenthood is facing closures, they should be pointing to mismanagement of their own national organization, not the government," said Amber Roseboom, president of Right to Life of Michigan. Earlier this month, Roseboom also condemned the county-level, taxpayer-funded support for the organization, calling it "an insult to every taxpayer in the region."
The allocation from Washtenaw County came after Gov. Gretchen Whitmer in May refused a request from the organization, which asked her to use her executive power to shift about $5 million in taxpayer money toward Planned Parenthood. The decision was met with criticism from Democrats.
Whitmer's office called the governor "one of the country's greatest champions for reproductive freedom" but declined to take unilateral action on the request.
"Under the Michigan Constitution, the Legislature has the responsibility to allocate state funds," Whitmer spokeswoman Stacey LaRouche said at the time. "We would encourage any organization or individual to work with the Legislature on their budget asks."
The state budget passed the divided Legislature earlier this month without the requested funding for the organization.
On Thursday, Whitmer released a statement blaming "D.C. Republicans" for the cuts and said, "Republicans in Washington should be ashamed of themselves."
But State Rep. Laurie Pohutsky, a Livonia Democrat who has pushed to expand abortion and reproductive health access, indicated the blame also falls on Michigan's governor, "who ignored Planned Parenthood's pleas for help and legislators' plans for how you could help fund them."
In its announcement of the closure of the three health centers Thursday, Planned Parenthood said the shutdowns were triggered by a $4.2 million decline in patient care reimbursement and federal family planning funding in the next fiscal year. Additionally, the group is closing out the current fiscal year with about $5.6 million in "uncompensated and undercompensated care."
In May, Thornton Greear pointed to federal changes excluding Planned Parenthood from Medicaid coverage and cutting the group's Title X funding, which covers individuals who don't qualify for Medicaid, as some of the main factors affecting its budget woes.
In recent months, patients have had to rely more and more on Title X dollars because they've been unable to use Medicaid, the government health care program for low-income residents, to cover Planned Parenthood care, have lost private insurance or cannot afford the premiums on Affordable Care Act plans, Thornton Greear said in May.
The group's annual funding cap for Title X dollars, which usually runs from October to October, was fully exhausted in April. The group saw some relief this month, when a one-year ban on Medicaid funding for Planned Parenthood and other groups expired.
While the return of the group's Medicaid reimbursement will help, Planned Parenthood of Michigan said Thursday, it "does not recover nearly a year of lost revenue or eliminate ongoing threats to safety-net health care funding."
With the closure of the three facilities Thursday, Planned Parenthood has seven remaining health centers in Michigan as well as virtual options.
Last year, Planned Parenthood of Michigan closed health centers in Jackson, Petoskey and Marquette and consolidated two in Ann Arbor.
Planned Parenthood noted that neither the Livonia, Warren nor Lansing locations provided procedural abortion services. Further, its Livonia and Warren locations are within 20 miles of other health centers in Detroit and Ferndale, and the services it provided in Lansing are available through virtual care.
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This article originally appeared on The Detroit News: Planned Parenthood blames aid cuts as it closes Lansing center, 2 others