Gov. Tony Evers today announced that Wisconsin is joining a new multistate lawsuit fighting what he calls the Trump administration’s efforts to undermine women’s health, including reproductive health.
The lawsuit challenges the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ latest Notice of Funding Opportunity for federal family planning grants under Title X of the Public Health Service Act.
In a press release issued Thursday, Evers said the notice requires health care providers to “change and align” their programs with the Trump Administration’s priorities or risk funding ineligibility for established healthcare practices.
Evers criticized the Trump administration and Congressional Republicans for continuing to “undermine and defund” access to reproductive care and family planning services.
He said the administration recently sought to impose new ideological and politically driven requirements pertaining to medical and personal healthcare decisions that put critical services at risk for more than 7,300 Wisconsinites.
Services that could be affected are preventive, reproductive and family planning services such as breast and cervical cancer screenings, access to contraception and pregnancy diagnosis and counseling, the governor said.
“We should be working to make sure every Wisconsinite can get the care they need when and where they need it, but President Trump and Republicans in Congress are making everyday life more expensive and, at the same time, making healthcare even harder to find and afford,” Evers said in the press release.
Evers also cited recent reports showing that enrollment in the Affordable Care Act has dropped 12% nationally. It was the first enrollment decline in seven years,
He attributed the decline to Congressional Republicans allowing the ACA’s enhanced premium tax credits to expire.
