Medicaid funding blocked for Arkansas' two Planned Parenthood clinics

Medicaid funding for nonabortion services provided by Arkansas' two Planned Parenthood clinics remains unavailable after a federal judge refused Monday to grant the provider's latest request to restore the funding.

In 2015, U.S. District Judge Kristine Baker blocked the state from cutting off Medicaid funding for three women who sued over Gov. Asa Hutchinson's decision to sever the state's Medicaid contract with the provider.

Baker later expanded her order to prevent the state from cutting off funding for all Medicaid recipients in Arkansas who sought family planning and preventive health care services at the clinics. Abortion services already weren't covered by Medicaid.

But nearly a year ago, on Aug. 16, a divided three-judge panel of the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in St.