WASHINGTON, D.C. - Congressman Seth Moulton (MA-06) joined 128 of his colleagues in the Democratic Women's Caucus and Reproductive Freedom Caucus this week in calling on Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to immediately extend Title X family planning grants to health centers nationwide, following months of administrative dysfunction from HHS that has left critical funding in limbo.

The letter, led by Democratic Women's Caucus Whip Nikema Williams (GA-05) and Reproductive Freedom Caucus Vice Chair Lizzie Fletcher (TX-07), demands that HHS award a one-year full funding extension to all current Title X grantees before April 1. The urgency stems from HHS's failure to release funding guidelines for months only to drop them late on a Friday and give applicants just one week to respond, a timeline that threatens to destabilize health centers that millions of Americans depend on.

Title X has a long bipartisan history, originally championed by then-Congressman George H.W. Bush and signed into law by President Nixon. In 2023, the program served nearly 2.8 million patients through more than 3,800 health centers across all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and U.S. territories. Title X-supported screenings have contributed to cutting cervical cancer rates by more than half since the mid-1970s. For patients in rural and underserved communities, these clinics are often their sole source of health care.

In March 2025, HHS illegally withheld over $65 million in congressionally appropriated Title X funds from grantees in 23 states, putting care for an estimated 842,000 patients at risk. Many of those grantees are still recovering financially from that episode. The situation has only worsened with the Trump Administration's broader agenda, including a budget proposal that sought to eliminate Title X entirely, the potential loss of health insurance for an estimated 15 million Americans under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, and Congress's failure to extend Affordable Care Act tax credits.

Congressman Moulton and his colleagues are urging HHS to act before the April 1 deadline to ensure that no health center is forced to scale back or shutter services due to the agency's own failures in planning and administration.

###