ANCHORAGE, Alaska — Health care advocates are warning that a bill under consideration by Congress could cause two clinics providing abortions and other reproductive health care services in Alaska to close.

Rose O’Hara-Jolley, Alaska director of Planned Parenthood Alliance Advocates, said that the budget reconciliation bill adopted by the U.S. House — with support from Alaska’s U.S. Rep. Nick Begich — would result in the closure of 200 Planned Parenthood clinics across the country — or roughly a third of the facilities affiliated with the largest abortion provider in the country.

“Alaska could be included in those closures,” O’Hara-Jolley said on Tuesday.

Already, the number of places where Alaskans can access abortions — a procedure protected under the state’s constitutional right to privacy — is limited. Planned Parenthood operates clinics in Anchorage and Fairbanks. A Juneau Planned Parenthood clinic closed its doors last year. A Soldotna clinic closed in 2022. A Sitka clinic shuttered over a decade ago.

The budget reconciliation bill, dubbed the One Big Beautiful Bill by Republicans, would prohibit Medicaid payments going to health care providers who perform abortions, including Planned Parenthood.

Already, federal funds do not cover the cost of abortion procedures except in limited circumstances. But the Republican-backed provision included in the bill would eliminate Medicaid reimbursements for all care provided by Planned Parenthood clinics, which includes screenings for cancer and sexually transmitted diseases, and access to birth control and vasectomies.

One-third of Planned Parenthood patients in Alaska — who number more than 7,000 — are enrolled in Medicaid, O’Hara-Jolley said. The loss of those patients could force the closure of Alaska’s clinics.

In addition to shrinking the already limited availability of abortions in Alaska, the closure of Planned Parenthood clinics could make it harder for Alaskans to access some of the services provided by the clinics in Anchorage and Fairbanks, including screenings and family planning services.

Alaska has a shortage of medical providers that leads to long wait times for many clinics in Anchorage and elsewhere across the state. Some providers decline to accept patients enrolled in Medicaid because its reimbursement rates are lower than those of private insurers.

Ada Goodman, the health center manager for the Anchorage Planned Parenthood clinic, said the clinic is unique in that it offers same-day appointments for services that would otherwise require weeks of waiting.

“When calling around to other clinics, patients have been told that either their offices are not accepting Medicaid, or there is a two- to four-week wait to be seen,” said Goodman. “The only other option for these patients is to go the emergency department, which can cost the state many times over what a visit to Planned Parenthood would.”

This is the latest attempt in a decades-long effort by congressional Republicans to eliminate federal funding for Planned Parenthood and abortion providers across the country.

The budget reconciliation bill seeks to make hundreds of billions of dollars in cuts to Medicaid in order to pay in part for the extension of tax cuts sought by President Donald Trump. The bill would still increase the federal deficit by trillions of dollars, according to nonpartisan budget analysts.

The legislation is currently under consideration by the U.S. Senate, where it is expected to undergo significant changes. Alaska’s Republican U.S. Senators Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan have both expressed reservations about the cuts to Medicaid contained in the House version of the bill — including by imposing new work requirements on recipients — but they are split on the proposed changes to Medicaid reimbursements for Planned Parenthood.

Sullivan “does not believe that any government funding should go to Planned Parenthood,” spokesperson Amanda Coyne said in an email. She added that Sullivan is working to ensure that federally qualified community health centers “continue to provide women’s health services,” but did not respond to a question on whether the centers would be able to fill the void created if the Anchorage or Fairbanks Planned Parenthood clinics were to close.

Murkowski, on the other hand, “opposes cutting Planned Parenthood out of Medicaid reimbursements,” according to her spokesperson Joe Plesha.

“Sen. Murkowski has always been a supporter of Planned Parenthood, women’s reproductive rights, and the liberty of Alaskans to make decisions about their own health,” he wrote in a statement. “She is keenly aware that our state struggles with limited healthcare services, especially regarding family planning options for women with lower incomes. Reducing those options will not lead to better health outcomes.”

Murkowski “is engaged in conversations with her colleagues to advocate for health care options and access for Alaskans,” Plesha wrote.

Murkowski is one of the sole Republicans in Congress who has repeatedly expressed support for Planned Parenthood. In 2011, when House Republicans sought to eliminate federal funding for Planned Parenthood, she called the services provided by the organization “vital.” In 2018, when the first Trump administration sought to limit federal funding for abortion providers, Murkowski said the that such a change would “further limit critical access to health care services.”

Trump in his first term enacted changes to Title X, a federal funding program that supports clinics across the country providing family planning services to low-income and uninsured people. In 2018, the program was revised to disqualify clinics that offered abortion services and provided abortion referrals.

Former President Joe Biden reversed the change, only for Trump to indicate that those funds would again be withheld from clinics that provide abortions when he resumed office earlier this year.

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