Rep. Cloud: Biden Should Allow States to Exclude Abortion Providers From Medicaid Funding

A chart on prescription drugs is displayed by Rep. Michael Cloud (R-Texas) during a hearing at the U.S. Capitol Building in Washington on Sept. 30, 2020. Greg Nash/POOL/AFP via Getty Images

Rep. Michael Cloud (R-Texas) said the Biden administration should support the Republican bill he and Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.) introduced, which would prevent taxpayer dollars from funding abortion providers.

“What we haven’t seen is that middle-of-the-road approach so far. I hope we make a turn from that but that’s not what we’re seeing right here off the bat. We need to return to that; we need to get to where the American people are when it comes to setting policy for the American people,” said Cloud.

A new Knights of Columbus/Marist Poll found that the majority of Americans are opposed to using tax dollars to fund abortions, “even among those who identify themselves as ‘pro-choice’ in the current poll, over six in 10 (64 percent) say they are opposed to using tax dollars to support abortion in other countries.”

President Joe Biden has called for unity and pledged to be a leader for all Americans, but some Republicans have said the policies that his administration has enacted so far, mainly through executive orders, lean heavily to the left and do not take into account moderate voices.

Biden has instructed the U.S. health department to consider removing Trump-era restrictions to a low-income national family reproductive health program known as Title X. The program gave millions of dollars to health centers like Planned Parenthood that offer or refer patients for non-elective abortions.

Cloud’s bill opposes the Biden administration’s policy and allows states to make their own choice about whether they want their tax dollars to fund abortions.

“What our bill does is it ensures that your tax dollars that are going to states through the Medicaid program, that states have the right to exclude abortion providers,” said Cloud on Monday in a radio interview with Just the News with host David Brody. (at about 6min and 30 second)

“It doesn’t reduce the dollars that are going to those states for women’s health care, what it does is it says, if you’re not spending money on abortion, you can spend it in other ways that really benefit women’s health care,” said Cloud.

Meanwhile, Lankford said the bill, which is titled the Women’s Public Health and Safety Act, does not consider abortions to fall under the health care category.

“Abortion isn’t health care and taxpayers shouldn’t be forced to support the largest abortion providers in the country under the guise of women’s health care,” said Lankford in a press statement. “This bill allows states to ensure that tax dollars support the thousands of health care providers without the worry that tax dollars will also contribute to abortion services at organizations like Planned Parenthood. We can simultaneously stand for the unborn while also supporting fundamental, quality health services for women everywhere.”

Cloud explained what he thinks is the reason for Democrats and Republicans supporting differing policy views on the topic. He said the GOP believes that the foundation of the republic is built on the idea that people’s rights don’t come from government but from God, and all people are equal.

“And so the extreme left is really trying to push us at the root of all of this, [which is the] ideology, that thought, that says that we’re not created in the image of God and therefore the rights do not come from him and therefore the government has a right to do what they want,” he said.