Last month Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels signed a bill banning the state from funding Planned Parenthood. Small problem: the law runs smack into the federal Medicaid law.

In a letter to Patricia Casanova, director of the state Office of Medicaid Policy and Planning, Dr. Donald Berwick, the administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, said that Indiana’s ban violated a provision of the law allowing that “beneficiaries may obtain covered services from any qualified provider that undertakes to provide such services.”

Of course, Indiana can still refuse to fund Planned Parenthood, as long as the state is willing to give up the rest of its Medicaid funding as well.