As reproductive healthcare provider Planned Parenthood fights a new threat to funding from the Trump administration, clinics in Central Florida plan to remain open and operational, according to Planned Parenthood of Florida chief medical officer Dr. Robin Schickler, who spoke to Orlando Weekly about the current state of affairs.
“Patients in Central Florida — really, in Florida generally — should be reassured that we don’t plan on going anywhere,” Schickler confirmed in a phone call Tuesday afternoon. “We’ve been through a lot in Florida, and we’re still here taking care of lots of people, and that’s not going to change.”
Planned Parenthood scored a temporary injunction Monday night in a federal lawsuit the nonprofit filed against the Trump administration Monday over a provision of Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act that bans Medicaid payments to large health care nonprofits like Planned Parenthood that offer abortion procedures. The temporary block, according to the New York Times, will allow Planned Parenthood’s clinics to continue to receive Medicaid reimbursement for services that do not include abortion care.
Under existing law, Planned Parenthood is already barred from receiving Medicaid payments for abortion in Florida. But Schickler said this block allowed for their Florida clinics to reschedule appointments that their staff had been calling patients to cancel over the weekend, after Trump signed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (as it’s officially titled) into law.
“The weekend was tough after the bill was signed, because staff did have to reach out to those patients to cancel appointments and let them know we couldn’t see them,” Schickler explained, referring to patients with Medicaid served by their Florida clinics. “Thankfully, today’s kind of a reversal on that, but obviously that’s hard on everyone.”
President Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act, a major budget reconciliation package approved by the GOP-majority Congress last week, could cause millions of Americans on Medicaid to become uninsured over the next decade, according to estimates from the U.S. Congressional Budget Office, in addition to cutting Medicaid reimbursements for larger abortion care nonprofits like Planned Parenthood.
The provision affecting Medicaid reimbursement specifically affects nonprofits that offer abortion care and generated at least $800,000 in revenue from Medicaid payments in the 2023 fiscal year.
According to Planned Parenthood, more than half of their patients nationwide, including thousands in Florida, are enrolled in Medicaid, a public health insurance plan specifically for low-income families, children and people with disabilities.
The nonprofit warned ahead of the budget bill’s passage that its provisions could lead to the closure of an estimated 200 Planned Parenthood clinics across 24 U.S. states, affecting access to healthcare for more than 1 million patients.
Florida, however, is not one of the states that is expected to see closures, Schickler confirmed. In fact, the nonprofit just today announced a merger between their two affiliates in Florida — Planned Parenthood of South, East and North Florida and Planned Parenthood of Southwest and Central Florida — in an effort to expand their service hours and access to care across the state’s 67 counties.
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“We know what our patients are up against: relentless state restrictions on care, widespread maternity care deserts, and now a direct attack on access to Planned Parenthood for patients using Medicaid,” said Alexandra Mandado, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood of Florida, in a prepared statement. “In the face of these challenges, we’re not standing still — we’re moving forward. This merger allows us to meet the moment, meet the needs of our patients, and build something stronger for the future. Every Floridian deserves access to health care — no matter what.”
Planned Parenthood, which operates 17 health centers across Florida, has already been forced to reckon with Florida’s restrictive abortion law, which banned most abortions after six weeks, effective May 1, 2024. Within the first month of the law taking effect, Planned Parenthood said they navigated more than 300 Florida patients to abortion care options outside the U.S. Southeast, where abortion is less restrictive.
But Planned Parenthood isn’t just an abortion clinic. Since abortion care was already ineligible for Medicaid reimbursement in Florida under pre-existing law, it’s the other health services their clinics provide to Floridians — such as birth control, prenatal care and cancer screenings — that they worry could be cut off if the provision of the bill they sued over is allowed to fully take effect.
“Reproductive health clinics would no longer be able to take Medicaid, so patients with Medicaid would no longer be able to see us,” Schickler explained.
The temporary injunction issued Monday in Planned Parenthood’s lawsuit over the Big Beautiful Bill only lasts for 14 days, according to the New York Times. The lawsuit argues that the provision affecting their Medicaid reimbursement is unconstitutional, and violates constitutional rights to free speech under the First Amendment and equal protection under the Fifth Amendment.
Anti-abortion organizations like the religiously affiliated Heartbeat International have praised the budget bill, describing the bill signing last Friday as a “historic moment for the cause of life.”
“This bill is not about restricting care; it’s about restoring true care,” Heartbeat International CEO Jor-El Godsey claimed in an op-ed published by an anti-abortion website. “It takes Big Abortion’s heavy thumb off the scales and puts taxpayer dollars to work in places that supports both mother and child.”
For Godsey, and his anti-abortion comrades in arms, that includes Heartbeat International-supported “crisis pregnancy centers,” which are facilities that often pose as abortion clinics but exist with the explicit goal of convincing pregnant women to not get an abortion. Dozens of these facilities in Florida receive taxpayer funds each year through the state’s “alternatives to abortion” program.
“While Trump slashes funding for evidence-based, regulated health providers, state lawmakers are steering desperate patients toward clinics that pretend to offer care — but lack the training, oversight, and medical staff to handle basic complications, let alone emergencies like ectopic pregnancy,” said Debra Rosen, executive director of the nonprofit Reproductive Health and Freedom Watch (a group that supports abortion rights), in a statement.
“This is not freedom,” she argued, but a “trap” and a “two-tiered system where low-income women lose access to doctors and facilities equipped to care for them and are funneled into ideological storefronts dressed up as health centers.”
Although the temporary block on the provision affecting Planned Parenthood’s Medicaid reimbursement is temporary, Schickler remains optimistic that Planned Parenthood will be able to continue to operate in Florida. Their providers, after all, have already faced challenges from GOP state lawmakers who have historically declined to expand Medicaid insurance to more Floridians in need as it is, and have even moved to make it harder for voters to do so themselves through the ballot box.
“We always find a way to get care to the communities in need, and that, I think is going to only get better with the merger — we’ll be able to reach people that we haven’t reached before,” she said.
According to a news release from her organization, the merger is expected to expand access to Planned Parenthood health services by increasing hours and service days at “several health centers” in Florida and providing more telehealth options for care.
“As government attacks continue to mount, our state and national health care landscape is calling on our organizations to take bold action to address health disparities, improve outcomes, and meet the diverse needs of our communities,” said Barbara Zdravecky, interim CEO at the former Planned Parenthood affiliate covering Central and Southwest Florida, in a statement. “With this merger, our unity will strengthen our ability to face these challenges for decades to come.”
Planned Parenthood has one clinic location each in Orlando, Kissimmee and Lakeland, two facilities in Tampa, and 12 other locations throughout Florida.
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This article appears in Jul 2-8, 2025.