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medicaid
US Court Lets GOP Defunding of Planned Parenthood Take Effect
"This cruel decision will disproportionately impact people of color and people living in rural communities and healthcare deserts," said one abortion rights activist.
Sep 12, 2025
A federal appeals court on Thursday gave the Trump administration the green light to cut off Planned Parenthood from receiving funding from Medicaid.
As reported by Reuters, the 1st US Circuit Court of Appeals placed a hold on a preliminary injunction granted by a lower court that had kept Medicaid funding to Planned Parenthood in place. Planned Parenthood was blocked from receiving Medicaid funding after US President Donald Trump signed the so-called "One Big Beautiful Bill Act" into law earlier this year.
In a statement released after the ruling, Planned Parenthood said that it would result in more than 1.1 million patients being unable to use Medicaid to access needed healthcare services at its clinics.
"Patients who rely on the essential healthcare that Planned Parenthood health centers provide, can’t plan for their futures, decide where they go for care, or control their lives, bodies, and futures," said Alexis McGill Johnson, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Federation of America. "All because the Trump administration and its backers want to attack Planned Parenthood and shut down health centers."
Johnson added, however, that she wasn't giving up and said that Planned Parenthood "will continue to fight this unconstitutional law, even though this court has allowed it to impact patients."
Brittany Fonteno, president and CEO of the National Abortion Federation, warned that taking away funds from Planned Parenthood would only put more strain on other hospitals and clinics that are already bracing for the negative impact of the GOP's Medicaid cuts.
"When Planned Parenthood health centers are forced to close, pressure mounts on other clinics already stretched thin to provide sexual and reproductive health services," she said. "This cruel decision will disproportionately impact people of color and people living in rural communities and healthcare deserts, who will be left with even fewer options and longer wait times to get the care they need. Any additional barriers to care are both unacceptable and dangerous."
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) took to social media to warn that up to 200 Planned Parenthood clinics could close thanks to the loss of Medicaid funding, which she said would have devastating consequences for women's healthcare.
"How many people will be denied cancer screenings, birth control, and STI testing?" she asked. "Millions. It's horrific."
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Why Male Suicide Prevention Requires Policy, Not Just Awareness
On this Suicide Prevention Day, the question is whether we will stop treating male suicide as a seasonal headline and start treating it as a preventable epidemic.
Sep 10, 2025
Today is September 10, World Suicide Prevention Day. The hashtags are already out. Politicians are tweeting about “awareness.” Nonprofits are posting hotline numbers. News outlets will run a few stories, maybe a profile of a grieving family or a segment on rising youth anxiety. Communities will hold vigils and light candles. And then, as happens every September, Congress will return to debating budgets that cut the very services that keep people alive.
Suicide has become an annual ritual of shock, treated as if it were a hurricane that blew in unannounced instead of a slow-moving crisis we have been measuring for decades.
Suicide is not weather. It is not random. It is patterned, predictable, and preventable. Rates climb where jobs collapse and housing becomes unstable. They spread where guns are plentiful and mental healthcare is scarce. They grow in cultures that equate vulnerability with weakness. And they accelerate when elected officials strip away the programs that keep people from falling over the edge.
I know the consequences of silence. My father died by suicide when I was young. For more than a decade, I did not know how he died. My family believed silence could protect me. But silence also isolates, leaving questions that cannot be asked and grief that cannot be named. That fog never fully lifts. It is a reminder that behind every statistic is a family that carries loss forward, often without words for it.
That loss is now multiplied across nearly 50,000 American families each year. Almost 50,000 people died by suicide in 2022—the highest number ever recorded—and nearly 50,000 again in 2023. That is one death every 11 minutes. Three out of four were men. Men are half the country yet nearly 80% of its suicides. The rate for men over 85 is the highest of any group, 15 times higher than women of the same age. Middle-aged men follow close behind, especially in rural counties where work has dried up, institutions have withered, and guns are everywhere. Even among younger men, suicide remains a leading cause of death.
The methods matter. More than half of suicides now involve a firearm. Men are far more likely than women to use a gun, and that choice often makes the difference between an attempt and a death. A gun is immediate and almost always fatal. A moment of despair becomes permanent because the tool at hand was designed to be permanent. Where lethal means are easy and care is scarce, brief despair turns irreversible. States with higher gun ownership have higher suicide rates. The connection is not mysterious. It is arithmetic.
Suicide is not inevitable. It rises when supports are stripped and stigma is reinforced.
Economics tell the same story. Men who lose jobs, homes, or the ability to provide are at higher risk. One national study found that more than 1 in 5 men aged 45 to 64 who died by suicide had recently lost a job, faced eviction, or been buried by debt. When a man’s sense of worth is tied to being a provider, losing that role can feel like losing his reason to live. Economists Anne Case and Angus Deaton called these “deaths of despair,” and the label fits. But despair is not destiny. Raise the minimum wage, expand tax credits, stabilize housing, and suicides among working-class men decline. Let wages stagnate, strip away safety nets, and suicides rise. If despair tracks wages and rent, then budgets decide who lives long enough to get help.
Budgets are moral documents. In 2025, the Trump administration proposed cutting more than a billion dollars from the nation’s main mental health agency. That means fewer clinics, fewer treatment teams, fewer crisis counselors. The same budget threatened to scrap parts of the 988 crisis line, including its LGBTQ youth service. At the Department of Education, $1 billion in school counselor grants was pulled back, leaving rural districts that had finally hired mental health staff facing layoffs. Insurance rules that would have forced companies to cover therapy on par with physical health were paused. On homelessness, the administration reversed Housing First, vowing instead to sweep encampments, force treatment, and “bring back asylums.” Each of these choices falls hardest on men. When Medicaid is cut, when housing supports vanish, when community clinics close, the men most in need are left to cycle through emergency rooms, jails, or morgues.
Policy failures meet cultural stigma. Only about a third of men say they would seek professional help if depressed, compared to nearly 60% of women. The rest say they would handle it on their own, or not at all. That reluctance is reinforced by leaders and influencers. US President Donald Trump once suggested veterans with PTSD “aren’t strong.” Andrew Tate tells millions of young men that “depression isn’t real.” Jordan Peterson blames despair on feminism and political correctness. These voices frame pain as weakness, recast systemic causes as personal failings, and tell men that asking for help makes them lesser. For someone already on the edge, that message can be lethal.
And when suicide is mentioned in politics, it is often weaponized rather than addressed. Commentators invoke male suicide to claim that society only cares about women or minorities. Lawmakers cite “what’s happening to our boys” while voting against Medicaid expansion or school mental health funding. Grievance substitutes for prevention. The fire is pointed to, then the water is cut.
The alternative is straightforward, if not simple. Treat the 988 crisis line like 911: permanent, funded, universal. Expand Medicaid and enforce insurance parity so therapy is covered like any other medical need. Keep counselors in schools. Invest in housing with voluntary supports. Build mobile crisis teams so despair meets a trained counselor, not a police squad. And meet men where they are: union halls, barber shops, job sites, veterans’ groups.
We know this works. In Colorado, “Man Therapy” has used humor and direct language to reach men who would never otherwise consider counseling. Veterans’ peer networks reduce stigma and improve follow-through on care. In Australia, the “Men’s Shed” movement has built thousands of local spaces where older men gather, work on projects, and informally support one another—a model credited with reducing isolation and depression. These are not small-scale experiments. They are blueprints for national policy.
Suicide is not inevitable. It rises when supports are stripped and stigma is reinforced. It falls when care is reachable, affordable, and treated as normal. My father’s death remains a personal loss. But the broader crisis is a collective choice. We know the patterns. We know the risks. We know the solutions. What remains is whether policymakers are willing to act on them.
On this Suicide Prevention Day, the question is not whether we will keep raising awareness. It is whether we will stop treating male suicide as a seasonal headline and start treating it as a preventable epidemic. If policymakers can count the dead, they can also count the votes that decide whether men keep dying at this scale. The choice is not between silence and hashtags. It is between burying another 50,000 next year—or building a country where men live long enough to be heard.
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People in Every US Congressional District Set to Be Harmed by Trump-GOP Attack on Healthcare
"Every member of Congress, regardless of party or geography, will see tens of thousands of their constituents lose coverage under this law," says new research.
Sep 05, 2025
As Republican lawmakers attempt to rebrand the budget law that slashed $1 trillion for Medicaid to help pay for tax cuts for the rich—unable to ignore the blaring message from angry town hall participants and polls showing Americans do not support the so-called One Big Beautiful Bill Act—research released Friday suggests the GOP should brace for even more outrage from voters across the country.
According to the analysis by the Center for American Progress (CAP), no state or congressional district will be spared from the cuts the OBBBA makes to healthcare, and every district in the US is projected to see a rise in the number of uninsured people by 2034.
"Every member of Congress, regardless of party or geography, will see tens of thousands of their constituents lose coverage under this law," said the group.
CAP's report builds on analysis from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO), which found last month that the law's Medicaid work requirements, expiration of the Affordable Care Act's enhanced premium tax credits, and termination of reforms that benefit low-income Medicare beneficiaries will increase the number of uninsured Americans by 14.2 million over the next decade.
"Families, communities, and health systems nationwide will feel the consequences of these cuts."
The center-left think tank also expanded on a subsequent KFF report that showed how the 14.2 million figure would be spread out across states, finding that the uninsured rate would rise by at least 3% in 34 states and Washington, DC.
CAP's district-by-district analysis found that congressional districts will have an average of 33,000 more people who are uninsured by 2034 due to the OBBBA's healthcare provisions. Those with more than 30% of their under-65 population enrolled in Medicaid are projected to see particularly large increases in the number of uninsured constituents, with Democratic Rep. Yassamin Ansari's district in Arizona expected to have about 80,000 more uninsured residents by 2034—the most of any district in the country.
Ansari launched an "Accountability Summer" town hall tour in her state in July, holding events in Republican-led districts where she spoke with Arizonans about how their "Republican representatives have failed" them by supporting the OBBBA, in some cases after having expressed concerns about the impact it would have on their constituents.
One district Ansari visited, represented by Rep. Eli Crane (R-Ariz.), is also among the districts expected to see a major increase in the number of uninsured residents, at 54,000.
Other Republicans are expected see people they represent lose their coverage in large numbers due to the law, including Reps. Daniel Newhouse (R-Wash.) and Hal Rogers (R-Ky.). About 66,000 of Newhouse's constituents are projected to lose coverage, along with 64,000 of people in Rogers' district.
Rep. Randy Fine (R-Fla.), who touted the OBBBA as a "generational win for working families," will see 54,000 of his constituents lose their insurance, according to CAP.
The think tank found that California, Florida, and Texas will have the highest increases in their uninsured population, with more than 1 million people in each state losing coverage.
The losses caused by the OBBBA are projected to reverse "more than a decade of progress in expanding coverage," said CAP.
"Every lawmaker will see thousands of constituents lose coverage under this law," added the group. "Families, communities, and health systems nationwide will feel the consequences of these cuts."
In addition to attempting to reframe the OBBBA to boost its popularity, some Republicans are attempting to backpedal on the provision ending ACA tax credits that have helped millions of Americans afford their health coverage, which is scheduled to go into effect at the end of the year.
Reps. Tom Kean Jr. (R-NJ), Rob Bresnahan (R-Penn.), and Juan Ciscomani (R-Ariz.) have proposed a bill to extend the credits for one year, hoping to delay until after the midterm elections the provision that could cause some monthly premiums to skyrocket by 75% and leave more than 4 million Americans without health coverage.
"Congressional Republicans voted to rip health coverage from millions of Americans. They don't get brownie points for attempting to kick the can down the road on their own harmful and unpopular agenda because it's convenient for them," said Leor Tal, campaign director for Unrig Our Economy.
"If Republicans in Congress were serious about protecting people's care," added Tal, "they would vote to make these vital healthcare tax credits permanent and they wouldn't have passed the largest cut to Medicaid in history to pay for tax breaks for billionaires."
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