Overnight Healthcare: Clinton blasts ‘concerted attack’ on Planned Parenthood

Hillary Clinton defended Planned Parenthood on Thursday amid fallout over a pair of videos showing top officials discussing the transfer of aborted organs and fetal tissue.

“For more than a century, Planned Parenthood has provided essential services for women,” Clinton said in South Carolina, marking her first public comments about the controversy.

{mosads}”I think it is unfortunate that Planned Parenthood has been the object of such a concerted attack for so many years,” she added, according to multiple reports.

“And it’s really an attack against a woman’s right to choose, to make the most personal, difficult decisions that any woman would face, based on her faith and the medical advice that she’s given.”

A secretly recorded video released early last week shows a top Planned Parenthood medical doctor discussing — between bites of salad and sips of wine — methods to preserve livers, lungs and “intact” hearts.

BOEHNER WANTS ‘FACTS’ BEFORE DEFUNDING GROUP: Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) said Thursday he wants to wait for a congressional investigation before moving to defund Planned Parenthood. “Let’s get the facts first,” he said.

That approach contrasts with some House conservatives, who are pushing to vote right away on a bill to defund Planned Parenthood, at least for a year. Rep. Diane Black (R-Tenn.) has 124 co-sponsors on a bill to cut off funds for a year while the investigation takes place.

The national uproar has been fueled by two secretly recorded videos of Planned Parenthood officials, which the group says were deceptively edited to suggest wrongdoing. Read more here.

PELOSI PRESSES DOJ TO INVESTIGATE GROUP BEHIND VIDEO: House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on Thursday joined calls for a federal investigation into the California-based anti-abortion group that sparked the Planned Parenthood hidden camera controversy.

“Let’s have an investigation of those people who were trying to ensnare Planned Parenthood in a controversy that doesn’t exist,” Pelosi said Thursday in her first public remarks about Planned Parenthood since the first undercover video surfaced last week. Read more here.

2016 FIGHT BREWING OVER MEDICARE: Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) slammed former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush on Thursday, after the Republican presidential contender suggested Medicare should be phased out.

“It is an indication of how far right-wing the Republican Party has become when its ‘moderate’ candidate, Jeb Bush, at a forum sponsored by the billionaire Koch brothers, is now talking about phasing out Medicare,” Sanders, who is also running for president, fired back in a statement. Read more here.

HOUSE VOTES TO BLOCK MANDATORY GMO LABEL LAWS: The House on Thursday passed hotly contested legislation that would keep states from issuing mandatory labeling laws for foods that contain genetically modified organisms, often called GMOs.

The Safe and Accurate Food Labeling Act of 2015, which passed 275-150, would instead create a federal standard for the voluntary labeling of foods with GMO ingredients.

The mandatory labeling laws have already passed in Vermont, Connecticut and Maine. Read more here.

Friday’s schedule:

The Alliance for Health Reform holds a congressional briefing on empowering patients.

State by state

Burwell, Montana governor to talk Medicaid expansion waiver

Cost is main reason Connecticut customers terminate coverage through exchange

Appointment availability up after Medicaid expansion in Michigan

What we’re reading

Some public hospitals win, others lose with ObamaCare

The next bipartisan frontier: A mental health bill

Planned Parenthood pulls names of corporate donors after Coca Cola, Ford and Xerox object

What you might have missed from The Hill

Small business owners swarm D.C. to oppose ObamaCare fines

Republican urges IRS to audit Planned Parenthood

Santorum: GOP is ‘simply afraid‘ of fighting Planned Parenthood

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