Last week, the federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) issued a “guidance letter” that makes it easier for states to exclude abortion providers (chiefly Planned Parenthood) from Medicaid. According to the National Right to Life Committee 19 states have passed laws excluding abortion providers from Medicaid, and such laws are currently in effect in 11 states (Arizona, Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Wisconsin). The letter does so by rescinding an Obama-era letter that, according to the new letter, “raises legal issues under the Administrative Procedure Act.”

If you support the existence of the Medicaid program, you have no right to complain about states trying to block abortion providers from the program or the Trump administration making it easier for states to do so.

Health care is where people express their deepest-held values, when it comes to both their own care and what they are willing to purchase for others. Medicaid, like all government health care programs, forces everyone to pay for health care in the manner Washington, DC deems appropriate, on pain of prison, whether they like it or not. It therefore turns such personal questions into political ones. It guarantees one side or another’s values will always get trampled. When Democrats run Medicaid, they use it to trample Republican values. They will allow abortion providers to participate in the program, even though many Republicans consider it morally repugnant that the government should force them to subsidize an organization that practices what they consider legalized murder. When Republicans run Medicaid, they use it to trample Democratic values. They will exclude abortion providers, even though Democrats find any kind of discrimination against abortion providers unconscionable. Those who complain about this change are really just complaining that they don’t get to impose their will on other people.

Congress should instead let Republicans and Democrats keep their money and decide for themselves what health care they will purchase for the disadvantaged.