PATRICK WHITTLE and GEOFF MULVIHILL.

FILE - Vanessa Shields-Haas, a nurse practitioner, walks from the lobby toward the examination rooms at the Maine Family Planning healthcare facility, July 15, 2025, in Thomaston, Maine. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa, file)

Maine clinics also hit by cuts that targeted Planned Parenthood plan to halt primary care

A network of medical clinics that serves low-income residents in Maine says it is shutting down its primary care operations because of Trump administration cuts to abortion providers. President Donald Trump’s policy and tax bill blocked Medicaid money from Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion provider. The parameters in the bill also stopped funding from reaching Maine Family Planning, a much smaller provider that also provides other services in the mostly rural state. Maine Family Planning said Wednesday it has informed its nearly 1,000 primary care patients that it will no longer be providing that service starting Oct. 31.

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Vanessa Shields-Haas, a nurse practitioner, walks from the lobby toward the examination rooms at the Maine Family Planning healthcare facility, July 15, 2025, in Thomaston, Maine. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)

Congress targeted Planned Parenthood for defunding, but also caught a Maine health care provider

Planned Parenthood isn’t the only abortion provider that stands to lose Medicaid payments under a budget plan signed by President Donald Trump. The much smaller Maine Family Planning was also hit by the policy. Now, it’s suing. The law seeks to bar Medicaid payments for family planning organizations that provide abortion and received at least $800,000 in Medicaid funding in 2023. It appears the group in the rural state is the only one besides the nation’s biggest abortion provider to meet the definition. The funds in question are for services other than abortion, such as birth control and primary care.

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