Gavin Newsom and Donald Trump Credit: Salon/Getty

The Trump administration announced plans to cut at least $200 million in health care funding to California — after President Trump leaves office — in protest over a 2014 state regulation requiring insurers to cover abortions.

Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar, who has proclaimed his agency is the “Department of Life,” announced the move against California during a White House event on Wednesday celebrating the administration’s “work to fight abortion.”

“Unless California amends its policies we will seek to withhold an additional $200 million every quarter until it complies,” he threatened.

Roger Severino, the anti-abortion activist who heads the Office for Civil Rights at the Department of Health and Human Services, declared ahead of January’s anti-abortion March for Life that the state regulation requiring employers and private insurance companies to cover abortion costs violates the Weldon Amendment, which protects medical providers from being forced to cover the procedure — even though the Obama administration already determined that California’s rule does not violate federal law.

On Wednesday, Severino explained that HHS will respond by withholding $200 million in federal funding for […]

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