| | | | |  | | By Ben Leonard and Chelsea Cirruzzo | With Alice Miranda Ollstein
| | |  The Abortion Access Now campaign was formed to draft pro-choice policies and drum up support. | Paul Sancya/AP | FIRST IN PULSE: THE MULTIMILLION DOLLAR PLAN — A new coalition of abortion-rights groups, including Planned Parenthood, the ACLU and Reproductive Freedom for All, is marking the second anniversary of the fall of Roe v. Wade by kicking off a $100 million, decadelong campaign to restore federal protections for the procedure and make it more accessible than ever before, Alice reports. The strategy: Plans shared first with POLITICO outline the Abortion Access Now campaign’s aim to prepare policies for the next time Democrats control the House, Senate and White House and build support for those policies among lawmakers and the public. At a private event tonight in Washington, the group’s leaders will pitch to a group of influential progressives the need to go on offense at a time when abortion is outlawed in a third of the country. “Dobbs was a really devastating outcome, but we’re going to win back our rights much faster than they think,” Mini Timmaraju, the president and CEO of Reproductive Freedom for All, said in an interview. Flexibility is key: As Democrats on the ticket — from President Joe Biden on down — center abortion in their 2024 campaigns, and as many as a dozen states prepare to vote on access to the procedure in November, Abortion Access Now isn’t yet endorsing any particular bill or policy, and its members stress the need to adapt to whatever court rulings or election results come their way. Still, the nine core organizations and dozen supporting groups in the alliance have an initial game plan as they start lobbying elected officials, organizing volunteers and holding events in Arizona, Delaware, Georgia, Michigan, Maine, Montana, Nevada, New Hampshire, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Wisconsin. The great divide: The coalition plans to push for the most sweeping federal protections possible — laws that make abortion not just legal but easily accessible and affordable. But their effort to project a unified battle plan comes amid deep divisions within the left about the best way to restore abortion access. Some abortion-rights supporters, including President Joe Biden, are calling for a revival of Roe, which protected abortion only up to the point of fetal viability. Others argue that Roe failed to ensure meaningful abortion access for many people during the roughly 50 years it was the law of the land and call for national protections that go farther. “People need to understand that there is not agreement on reinstating a very flawed framework when we have the opportunity to build something that people actually need,” Pamela Merritt, executive director of Medical Students for Choice, which isn't a part of the coalition, told Alice. “I will never understand leading with compromise because that’s a sign of weakness that we should not be showing.” WELCOME TO MONDAY PULSE. May we all be a little more like the late Willie Mays, who, in addition to his many groundbreaking achievements, quite literally took the shirt off his back and gave it to me after throwing out the ceremonial first pitch to me at my Little League growing up. Reach us and send us your tips, news and scoops at bleonard@politico.com or ccirruzzo@politico.com. Follow along @_BenLeonard_ and @ChelseaCirruzzo.
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A Texas firm's employee health plan doesn't have to cover the preventive care mandated in Obamacare, a federal court has ruled. | Joe Raedle/Getty Images | Getty | MIXED RULING ON PREVENTIVE CARE MANDATE — A federal appeals court ruled partly in favor of groups challenging the Affordable Care Act’s mandate that employer health insurance plans cover preventive care, Alice reports. The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals said on Friday that Texas firm Braidwood Management, which brought the challenge and raised religious objections, couldn’t be compelled to give its employees insurance covering the services. However, the court overturned a lower court ruling preventing nationwide enforcement of the mandate, shielding access to no-cost preventive services — including HIV prevention drug PrEP and depression screenings — for tens of millions of people. The path forward: The case heads back to a Texas district court, which will hear arguments on whether the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force should continue to have the power to decide what insurers must cover and whether the panel’s decisions over the past decade can stand. The judge in that court has ruled several times against the ACA. The conservative challengers — represented by Texas abortion ban architect Jonathan Mitchell — who are attempting to end the preventive care mandate could also appeal to the Supreme Court. The consequences: Legal experts say other employers could use the ruling to avert offering comprehensive health coverage. “Somebody else can come in and say, ‘Hey, that thing you did for Braidwood? How about you do it for me, too?’” said Andrew Twinamatsiko, director of the Health Policy and the Law Initiative at Georgetown University’s O'Neill Institute. “As long as they can get their foot in court, like Braidwood did, they can make the same claim and thereby create this national hodgepodge of coverage.”
| | ‘SAFE, LEGAL AND RARE’ — A Republican trying to win a competitive district in Southern California is talking like a Clinton-era Democrat on abortion, POLITICO’s Melanie Mason reports. “I’m a pro-choice Republican that believes abortion should be safe, legal and rare,” said Matt Gunderson, the car dealership owner challenging Democratic Rep. Mike Levin in Southern California. But Democrats are quick to poke holes in Gunderson’s self-proclaimed support for abortion rights. “The difference is Bill Clinton was actually pro-choice,” said Levin, contrasting Gunderson with the president who popularized the “safe, legal and rare” rhetoric — a phrase that has since been spurned by abortion-rights advocates who see it as stigmatizing the procedure. The bigger picture: The position puts Gunderson in a small and shrinking group of Republicans who back abortion rights and sets him apart from other GOP candidates who have tried to skirt the issue. He’s attempting to distance himself from more restrictive anti-abortion policies pushed by some in the Republican party in a bid to neutralize the issue that Democrats have capitalized on since Roe v. Wade was overturned. The outcome of the race, and its potential to determine control of the House, could influence how Republicans approach abortion in future elections. FLORIDA, MEDICAID AND THE UNDOCUMENTED — Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ crackdown on illegal immigration has led to a drop in Medicaid spending on undocumented immigrants, POLITICO's Arek Sarkissian reports. The Republican governor signed a law last year directing hospitals taking Medicaid to ask patients about their immigration status when they seek treatment. The law doesn't compel an answer, but immigrant rights groups have raised concerns that the mandate would deter migrants from seeking needed medical care. Florida’s Emergency Medical Assistance program for undocumented immigrants has seen a 54 percent drop in expenditures billed to Medicaid this year — with less than two months remaining in the fiscal year — since the state immigration law took effect, according to a POLITICO analysis. DeSantis and Florida Republicans take the results as a signal that the crackdown launched amid his failed presidential campaign is working.
| | | | SUBSCRIBE TO GLOBAL PLAYBOOK: Don’t miss out on POLITICO’s Global Playbook, our newsletter taking you inside pivotal discussions at the most influential gatherings in the world. Suzanne Lynch delivers the world's elite and influential moments directly to you. Stay in the global loop. SUBSCRIBE NOW. | | | | | | | | ‘BLUEPRINT FOR LIFE’ — A sizeable group of prominent anti-abortion organizations released a plan Saturday to put the movement on a “laser-focused” path forward to care for children and their parents, in what they’re dubbing the “next phase of the pro-life movement.” The plan — backed by Students for Life Action, Americans United for Life, former Sen. Rick Santorum and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, among others — centers on bolstering childcare and postpartum care as well as the child tax credit and family leave. “A greater culture of life would minimize the financial burden on parents to underscore the moral and societal value of preserving such life,” the proposal said, calling on states to implement policies advancing the plan’s goals. Many of the policies proposed would potentially be palatable for Democrats, which would create an unlikely union. The bigger picture: Republicans and the anti-abortion movement have faced significant divisions on how to proceed in the wake of the Dobbs decision two years ago returning abortion rights to the states. Some have called for more focus on supporting families.
| | Vivek Kavadi will be CEO of the American Society for Radiation Oncology. He is chief radiation oncology officer for the US Oncology Network. Robert Matthews will be a chief program officer at Think of Us. He most recently was director of the D.C. Child and Family Services Agency. Jirair Ratevosian will be the inaugural Hock fellow at the Duke Global Health Institute. He’s also starting as an associate research scientist at Yale University.
| | POLITICO’s Rachel Bluth reports on California's budget deal delaying the state's $25-per-hour health care working minimum wage until it can afford it. The Wall Street Journal reports on a new study finding that when hospital prices rise, local economies suffer consequences. | | | | Follow us on Twitter | | | | Follow us | | | | |
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