While the headlines of late have all been about gay marriage, lethal injection, and the Affordable Care Act, a major strike against women’s health care has been quietly mounting in Washington.
In preparing its budget proposal for the upcoming year, the GOP-led Congress has made moves to fully eliminate Title X, the only federal grant program dedicated solely to providing individuals with comprehensive family planning and related reproductive health services, including contraception.
Ninety percent of the people Title X serves have incomes below 200 percent of the federal poverty level, and 63 percent are uninsured. Six in 10 women who access health care services from a Title X-funded health center consider this their main source of health care.
Funded at $286 million for fiscal year 2015, Title X has already sustained cuts totaling $31 million since fiscal year 2010, significantly reducing the number of patients served by its programs. There were 600,000 fewer individuals served by Title X programs in 2013 versus 2010 as a result of past cuts.
However, there’s evidence that Title X saves taxpayers money: For every public dollar invested in family planning, the American taxpayer saves approximately $7 in Medicaid-related costs. Nearly half of all births in the U.S. are paid for by Medicaid, the health care program for low-income families and individuals; the average national cost for one Medicaid-covered birth is $12,770. This is a stark contrast to the $239 per-client cost of publicly funded contraceptive care through Title X family planning. It is estimated, then, that Title X saves taxpayers nearly $7 billion a year.
There’s also evidence that Title X prevents unintended pregnancies — 1.1 million in 2012, to be exact, according to the Guttmacher Institute. These pregnancies would have resulted in 527,000 unplanned births and 363,000 abortions. Without the services provided by Title X — which include Pap smears, breast exams, cancer screenings, sexually transmitted infection screenings, and HIV tests — it is estimated that the number of unplanned births and abortions would be 66 percent higher.
So if Title X reduces costs and reduces the abortion rate, why the opposition?
It might have to do with the fact that while more than half of Title X-funded clinics are public health departments and another 14 percent are federally qualified health centers, 13 percent are Planned Parenthood clinics, according to the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy.
towards something else, and they've made some surprising strides in the abortion battle over the last decade or so. The eeeeeeeevil Planned Parenthood is only a natural target.