Abortion

Roundup: Preventative Care Harder to Access Thanks to “Fiscal Responsibility”

Robin Marty

As a consequence of conservative "fiscal responsibility" more and more preventative care programs are finding themselves running out of money.

From suing against “Obamacare” and the right for everyone to have access to preventative healthcare, to cutting state budgets by reducing healthcare funds to the poorest of the residents, conservatives have made healthcare a number one issue — in their case, often the reduction or elimination of it.

Let’s see how that’s working out.

Via Public News Service, in Wisconsin a program meant to help identify women with cancer is going broke:

The Wisconsin Well Woman Program, part of the National Breast and Cervical Cancer Early Detection Program, provides screening exams for low-income and uninsured women.

It’s critical to the health of Wisconsin’s women, says Allison Miller of the American Cancer Society in Wisconsin.

“The program is incredibly important, in that women who otherwise would not be able to afford getting that early, potentially life-saving screening, can do so through the program.”

Miller says the program could use more money, to save more lives.

“The Breast and Cervical Cancer Screening Program only has enough funding to screen about one out of every five women. So of all the women that are eligible, we’re only reaching one of five because the program is so dramatically underfunded.”

Washington is announcing the state may run out of money to assist people with their prescription medications.  Kaiser Health reports:

Some 500,000 Washington adults whose prescriptions are covered by Medicaid could soon lose that benefit unless lawmakers provide special funding when they reconvene in January. Medicaid’s adult drug program, which provides medication to the state’s poorest individuals through a combination of state and federal funding, will be eliminated in March if the Legislature can’t come up with $40 million before Feb. 1, according to the Department of Social and Health Services (DSHS). Washington would be the only state to eliminate the program”

Arizona will be losing the ability to be reimbursed for annual wellness exams for women.  Public News Service reports:

Routine annual well-woman exams for 400,000 low-income Arizona women are no longer covered by the state’s Medicaid program. It’s the result of AHCCCS budget cuts imposed Oct. 1 by the legislature.

Bryan Howard, CEO of Planned Parenthood says AHCCCS is effectively blocked from providing prevention services that would otherwise be covered.

“Go ahead and cover the pap smear, go ahead and do any tests for other infections, and go ahead and dispense the birth control, and you can reimburse for all of that. But you cannot reimburse for the exam where that gets done.”

Howard says a typical well-woman exam costs around $120, making it unaffordable for most AHCCCS recipients, who live on less than $1,000 a month.

Without the annual exams, Howard predicts that the eventual cost to taxpayers will be much higher, whether it’s for prenatal care and delivery of a baby a woman would have preferred to postpone, or dealing with a life-threatening disease.

And it’s not just health clinics being affected, but groups that assist women who have been victims of sexual or domestic assault. According to Top News, in Monroe County, PA, a domestic abuse and sexual assault group may end up going under water.

Spokesperson of a restricted women’s foundation group expressed on Friday that they were stunned to find out that their financial support had been slashed even while October is Domestic Violence Awareness month.

According to Jennifer Grube, the executive director of Women’s Resources of Monroe County, that offers aid to fatalities of sexual assault and domestic violence; it’s only in fact tough to consider.

Grube further added that the federal government slashed finances to the non-profit by $43,000, approximately 4 percent of the group’s annual financial plan. He also said that the need of money might influence the phase of concern that the center provides.

How very fiscally responsible of everyone.

Mini Roundup:  Access to abortion may be becoming slightly less difficult in Utah.  The University of Utah is now offering a national program to train physicians on contraception and abortion, and Planned Parenthood of Utah is now offering first trimester abortions in the state.

October 18, 2010

October 17, 2010

October 16, 2010

October 15, 2010