Andrea Grimes - Goodbye, Texas Women's Health Program
March 14, 2012 On March 14th, 2012, at least 300,000 low-income and uninsured Texas women will have no or greatly-reduced access to basic preventive and reproductive health care due to the loss of federal funding for the Medicaid Women's Health Program in the state. The program has been under threat for months as lawmakers fight over whether it's legal to exclude Planned Parenthood from the program.
On Friday, U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius told reporters in Houston that the federal government would not extend its waiver, which provided about 90 percent of the cost of the program. It is against federal law to exclude "qualified providers" from providing Medicaid care, and while the federal government considers Planned Parenthood "qualified," the state of Texas does not. Since 2005, legislators in Texas have sought specifically to block Planned Parenthood from participating in the Women's Health Program in Texas, when they voted into place a state law, only just now enforced, that bars "affiliates" of abortion providers from receiving funds. Planned Parenthood uses no taxpayer dollars to provide abortions and keeps its abortion services wholly financially separate from its non-abortion services.
Read More:
http://www.rhrealitycheck.org/article/2012/03/13/goodbye-texas-womens-health-program
