On Wednesday night, Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price co-hosted a health care town hall with CNN. His attempts to defend the GOP’s new health care plan went awry when a young woman stood up to ask him a question ― and in the process, pointed out how ridiculous the GOP’s attacks against Planned Parenthood are.
The woman, who has been identified as Katie Needle, told Price that she is a Medicaid recipient and a Planned Parenthood patient.
“I am a Medicaid enrollee, and I am a Planned Parenthood patient, and I would be absolutely devastated if Planned Parenthood were defunded,” she said.
(Watch the clip below.)
But before she asks Price her question, she takes the opportunity to point out Price’s, and the GOP’s, hypocrisy in their new health care proposal:
I just want to call back ― this isn’t part of my question ― but I just want to call back because you earlier brought up Medicaid specifically, and complained about how one of the biggest problems under Obamacare was that only a third of doctors were accepting Medicaid. This plan chooses to cut a provider that sees over a million Medicaid patients every year. So, if that is your big problem with Obamacare, then how does that make any sense?
Needle then went on to ask Price how he expects the millions of women who depend on Planned Parenthood to access the basic health care they need if the health care organization is defunded. Price responded in a way that Republicans often do when asked about Planned Parenthood: He said that Americans don’t want their tax dollars being used to support abortions or abortion clinics, but did not acknowledge that, through the Hyde Amendment, that’s already the case.
Needle’s moment at the Town Hall caught the attention of many Twitter users. Both her name and #IStandWithPP trended on Wednesday night.
Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards also caught Needle’s commentary, and tweeted her support for the young woman:
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