Planned Parenthood: Republican Proposal Continues Assault on Women’s Health

Source

Planned Parenthood Federation of America

Contact

Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA) today roundly criticized Republican leaders in the House of Representatives for releasing a FY 2012 Labor Health and Human Services appropriations package that puts politics over women’s health by reviving unprecedented proposals to take away preventive care from women, which were rightly rejected by the Senate only months ago.

 

“This budget not only guts effective programs that keep women and families healthy, it will make women and families worse off economically, at a time when they are already struggling,” said Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America.

 

Planned Parenthood is a trusted nonprofit health care provider that provides professional, reliable and quality health care, including birth control, lifesaving cancer screenings, annual exams, and STD testing and treatment to three million women and men across the country.  One in five American women has been to a Planned Parenthood health center at some point in her life.  In addition, six in 10 women who receive care from a women’s health center like those operated by Planned Parenthood consider it to be their main source of health care.

 

“At a time when Americans desperately want and need Congress to focus on fixing our economy and creating jobs, House Republican leaders are instead continuing their campaign to take away preventive health care and affordable birth control from millions of women,” said Richards.

 

The Republican House Labor HHS proposal would prohibit Planned Parenthood from providing primary and preventive care through public health programs; eliminate funding for the Title X National Family Planning program; and effectively prohibit insurance coverage of abortion in the new health exchanges under the Affordable Care Act. 

 

“This budget is further evidence that Republican leaders have no new ideas and are merely recycling failed attacks that undermine women’s health,” said Richards.  “Eliminating funding for the Title X family planning program and prohibiting Planned Parenthood from providing preventive health care through federal programs will result in millions of women across the country losing access to basic primary and preventive health care, including lifesaving cancer screenings, birth control, annual exams, and STD testing and treatment.”

 

The House Republican budget includes the following provisions aimed at preventing women’s access to health care. It:

 

·         revives the failed attempt to prohibit Planned Parenthood from participating in federal programs like Medicaid to provide preventive health care, including birth control, lifesaving cancer screenings, annual exams, and STD testing and treatment;

 

·         eliminates funding for the Title X National Family Planning Program, which provides access to birth control, cancer screenings, and other family planning services to five million low-income women each year;

 

·         revives the failed attempt to effectively ban insurance coverage of abortion in the new health exchanges under the Affordable Care Act — taking away a common health benefit that most private health plans currently offer;

 

·         prevents the implementation of the groundbreaking health care reform law, including new benefits that include insurance coverage of women’s preventive services like mammograms, cancer screenings, and birth control, with no additional co-pays;

 

·         cuts the Teen Pregnancy Prevention Initiative by $64.79 million — from $ 104.79 million to $40 million — and stipulates that $20 million of that money must be used for grants to provide ineffective, abstinence-only education;

·         includes a sweeping new refusal provision that undermines patients’ access to quality health care.

 

 

Published

September 29, 2011

Source

Planned Parenthood Federation of America

Contact

Planned Parenthood Federation of America media office: 212-261-4433

Published

September 29, 2011