National Review editor Ramesh Ponnuru raised the question last week of how much impact the One Big Beautiful Bill Act’s one-year, $700 million defunding of Planned Parenthood would actually have. He rightly noted that Planned Parenthood’s sky-is-falling messaging — that 200 of their 600 clinics would have to close — did not change even when the Senate shrank the OBBBA’s defunding proposal from ten years to one. In a recent episode of my radio show, NR’s religion editor Kathryn Jean Lopez and I were pessimistic about OBBBA’s impact over a single year, especially since blue states could approve emergency funds for abortion providers to make up the difference.

However, a closer analysis of the financial standing of Planned Parenthood’s affiliates has changed my mind. They might not be entirely crying wolf. A one-year defunding of Planned Parenthood may not close 200 clinics, but it will be a devastating blow to various Planned Parenthood affiliates, which simply cannot function without our Medicaid dollars.

Planned Parenthood is organized into 49 “affiliates,” nonprofit corporations that run clinics in regional groups throughout the country. As 501(c)(3) organizations, they all file publicly viewable 990 tax forms providing basic financial information: expenses, revenue from donations, and revenue from “program services.” In Planned Parenthood’s case, “program services” revenue involves payment from patients or payers for services, most of which is from Medicaid. Every Planned Parenthood’s 2023 information is available online, and 28 affiliates have a 990 or an audit from 2024 available.

Nationwide, Planned Parenthood’s affiliates ran a combined deficit of approximately $54 million in 2023, with $1.718 billion in revenue and $1.772 billion in expenses. Their combined program services revenue was approximately $978.6 million, the majority of which was from Medicaid reimbursements. The 28 Planned Parenthood affiliates with 990 forms or audits available for 2024 lost a combined $12.9 million.

To lose out on approximately $700 million, even for one year, will be devastating to an organization that is already struggling and nearly impossible to make up via increased donations or increased state funding. Even if they do find more revenue from such sources, Planned Parenthood will face such an enormous one-year loss that it will have to downsize: in some cases, massively.

One can see how individual Planned Parenthood affiliates will particularly suffer from this loss of funding. For example, Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin, which runs 22 clinics throughout the state, lost $5.6 million in 2023 with expenses of $41.9 million. According to the affiliate’s most recent annual report, from 2022–23, Medicaid funding represents 54 percent of its total revenue. Even if state Medicaid funding were to continue, the loss of federal dollars — one would estimate this to be $10 million at minimum — would force it to downsize operations in the state, as its CEO admitted last month.

However, it may not be possible for Planned Parenthood keep accepting Medicaid patients at all, even if state funding is not cut off. In Colorado, for example, state funding has not been cut off, but Planned Parenthood has announced that it will not accept Medicaid patients there. Without federal funding, the state reimbursement could be too low, leading a clinic to lose money for every service it provides.

Florida offers another example of how dependent abortion providers are on Medicaid. Planned Parenthood’s two large Florida affiliates are both losing money. In 2023, their southwest and central Florida clinics lost $4.9 million, with $31.2 million in expenses, and their “Treasure Coast” (south and east Florida) clinics lost $3.9 million, with $30.5 million in expenses. According to a publicly available audit, the Treasure Coast clinics lost another $1.5 million in 2024. The two affiliates received $13 million and $16.8 million, respectively, in “program services” in 2023, most of it coming from federal Medicaid. Planned Parenthood of Florida’s website proclaims that they cannot take Medicaid patients for services anymore, cutting off the bulk of their program revenue.

Florida is a red state, and Wisconsin is purple, but, paradoxically, deep-blue California might be the state where Planned Parenthood experiences the most financial pain. In total, Planned Parenthood’s seven California affiliates in 2023 had $583.3 million in expenses and $599.8 million in revenue, of which $475.75 million was from program services. While most Planned Parenthood affiliates’ revenue is derived roughly 50–50 from donations and clinic services, the California affiliates receive 81.5 percent of their revenue from clinic services, the bulk of which derives from Medicaid (in California, Medi-Cal). As a result, they could be particularly devastated by a loss of Medicaid revenue.

Planned Parenthood is arguing that it would need $25 million per month, $300 million for a year, in additional state funding to make up the loss of federal funds in California. Given the $12 billion budget deficit that Governor Gavin Newsom is desperately trying to resolve, this money for Planned Parenthood is not likely to materialize. In fact, two months ago, Newsom infuriated Planned Parenthood by trying to take for other purposes state funding earmarked for family planning. If federal funding is cut off, Planned Parenthood’s California clinics will go from making $16.5 million in profit in 2023 to suffering a nine-figure loss in 2026. That would be a train wreck, and there is almost no way that donations or other funding sources could make up the loss.

This all goes to show the injustice of Planned Parenthood’s receiving federal funding in the first place. Its essential mission of killing early-stage human beings continues solely because of our taxes, money to which Planned Parenthood is not forever entitled, no matter what leftist judges like Indira Talwani might think. They are so dependent on it that losing this money for even one year might topple a huge portion of the enterprise. I echo Wall Street Journal opinion editor Matthew Hennessey’s sentiment: Planned Parenthood’s losing its funding was the most beautiful thing in the One Big Beautiful Bill.