The Quickie: Medical Residents Are Still Avoiding States with Abortion Restrictions

Welcome to “The Quickie'' — Planned Parenthood Action Fund’s daily tipsheet on the top health care & reproductive rights stories of the day. You can read “The Quickie'' online here.

In today’s Quickie: Graduating medical students avoid states with abortion restrictions and a state fights round up.

MEDICAL RESIDENTS ARE STILL AVOIDING STATES WITH ABORTION RESTRICTIONS: New data from the Association of American Medical College shows that for the second year in a row, graduating medical students are less likely to choose residency programs in states with abortion bans or severe abortion restrictions. The analysis found a 4.2% decrease in the number of applicants for residency programs in states with near-total abortion bans. For OB-GYN residency applicants, abortion ban states experienced a 6.7% decrease in the number of applicants. 

Atul Grover, executive director of the AAMC’s Research and Action Institute, highlights the danger of the trend, writing, “It should be concerning for states with severe restrictions on reproductive rights that so many new physicians — across specialties — are choosing to apply to other states for training instead.”

Last week, polling found that the majority of young people won’t work in states with abortion bans— and it’s future doctors too. While the findings are nothing new, the overturning of Roe continues to devastate health care with dangerously lasting consequences.

Read more in KFF Health News.

STATE FIGHTS ROUND UP: Anti-abortion lawmakers across the country are hurting patients’ ability to access critical health care. In Missouri, lawmakers defunded Planned Parenthood, leaving thousands of Medicaid patients without health care providers. And in Iowa, a new law extends postpartum Medicaid coverage to 12 months, but also tightens income eligibility for Medicaid, leaving thousands of parents and babies without coverage. 

• Missouri: Missouri Governor Mike Parson signed legislation to defund Planned Parenthood health centers from the state’s Medicaid program. HB 2634, which will go into effect on August 28, bars the state’s Medicaid program from reimbursing Planned Parenthood health centers for providing health care to Medicaid patients and disqualifies Planned Parenthood as a provider in the state’s Medicaid program. Gov. Parson signed the law despite multiple rulings from the Missouri Supreme Court that withholding Medicaid reimbursement for care from Planned Parenthood affiliates in Missouri violates the state’s constitution. Experts have made it clear that there are not enough providers in the system to absorb the thousands of Medicaid patients that Planned Parenthood health centers serve in Missouri. 
• Iowa: On Wednesday, Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds signed a bill that extends postpartum Medicaid coverage to 12 months, but also tightens income eligibility requirements, therefore disqualifying thousands of Iowa parents and babies from Medicaid coverage entirely. The stricter income requirements will leave an estimated 1,300 women and 400 babies without health coverage each month. 
• Louisiana: On Tuesday, anti-abortion lawmakers in Louisiana rejected bills that would have added rape and incest exceptions into the state’s abortion ban and clarified treatment for pregnant patients with dangerous health conditions under the law. This is the second year in a row that bills to provide some relief from the state’s abortion ban were rejected by state lawmakers.