{"id":2469,"date":"2015-08-02T11:48:59","date_gmt":"2015-08-02T17:48:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/?p=2469"},"modified":"2015-08-02T11:55:45","modified_gmt":"2015-08-02T17:55:45","slug":"why-does-title-x-funding-still-exist-post-obamacare","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2015\/08\/why-does-title-x-funding-still-exist-post-obamacare.html","title":{"rendered":"Why does Title X funding still exist, post-Obamacare?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

(See disclaimer, below.)<\/p>\n

Title X is, of course, the program that funds contraception, as provided by Planned Parenthood and others, for low-income women. \u00a0Planned Parenthood is certainly not the only beneficiary of the program; as described by the HHS website<\/a>,<\/p>\n

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services\u2019 Office of Population Affairs (OPA) oversees the Title X program. OPA funds a network of nearly 4,200 family planning centers which serve about 4.5 million clients a year. Services are provided through state, county, and local health departments; community health centers; Planned Parenthood centers; and hospital-based, school-based, faith-based, other private nonprofits.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It\u2019s difficult to find the exact amount spent on this program; Wikipedia\u2019s information<\/a> is outdated and inconsistent \u2014 is it $317 million or $2.4 billion? \u00a0Either way, the figures are from 2010, though the share going to Planned Parenthood, 25%, matches what I\u2019ve read elsewhere. \u00a0According to the Wall Street Journal<\/a>,<\/p>\n

Planned Parenthood received federal and state grants and reimbursements of about $528.4 million last year, mostly from Medicaid, the federal-state health program for the poor.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Is this Title X money? \u00a0 The math is about right.<\/p>\n

But I read a comment on facebook the other day, raising this issue: \u00a0Title X was all about providing contraception to uninsured women, who weren\u2019t able to go to a regular doctor\u2019s office or pharmacy. \u00a0Obamacare\/the ACA has significantly reduced the number of poor women without health insurance, even if, for the most part, though expansion of Medicaid rather than through increased purchase of private or employer-provided insurance. \u00a0True, not all states have agreed to expand Medicaid to the new eligibility level of 133% of the federal poverty level, but the majority have, including the most populous ones.<\/p>\n

Which should mean that former Title X clients at federally-funded family planning clinics ought to be able to access the mainstream healthcare system, right? \u00a0And, while Planned Parenthood has tried to reposition itself as a provider of healthcare, a chain of gynecologists, if you will, it would make much more sense for contraceptive services to be integrated into general healthcare services, and for women to be able to access ladypart-related medical services in the same manner as they access healthcare services for the flu or a sprained ankle. \u00a0To a certain extent this is already the case: \u00a0looking at the HHS website and searching for local locations, I found the ACCESS Community Health Network<\/a>, a federally-funded sliding-scale network of clinics which receives Title X funds as well as other money to provide a full range of healthcare services.<\/p>\n

In this context, does Planned Parenthood really make sense? \u00a0Its defenders, such as the Guttmacher Institute<\/a>, make the claim that Title X is needed \u201cnow more than ever\u201d but I\u2019m not particularly persuaded:<\/p>\n

Now, millions more women can afford the most effective and often the most expensive methods of birth control. Yet, even with insurance, women need a place to go for services. Sustaining\u2014if not strengthening\u2014the Title X network of providers is critical so the newly insured can actually obtain high-quality care. Moreover, Title X sites are particularly well-situated to connect the uninsured to health coverage and to care for the people most likely to fall through the cracks of health reform.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It simply defies reason to say that, even as a substantial number of women are newly insured, programs aimed at giving contraceptives to uninsured women need to be expanded. \u00a0Now, to be sure, I support sliding-scale clinics providing healthcare services in general, and these clinics have learned that they need to change their eligibility requirements to open up the sliding-scale fees to individuals who are insured, but with high deductibles (see here<\/a>). \u00a0But Planned Parenthood clinics?<\/p>\n

Of course, a part of the \u201cnow more than ever\u201d line is simply the desire never, under any circumstances, to lose government money. \u00a0But, in the end, look at the name of the department providing the Title X money: \u00a0the Office of Population Affairs. \u00a0Its mission is not healthcare \u2014 not even under an expanded definition of \u201chealthcare\u201d in which, if nothing else, increasing the proportion of pregnancies which are intentionally planned improves the well-being of mothers and children. \u00a0Its mission is apparent from the title \u201cPopulation Affairs\u201d \u2014 it was established in 1970 (see Wikipedia<\/a>) back at a time of overpopulation worries.<\/p>\n

So look: \u00a0it\u2019s easy to fix the whole Planned Parenthood funding issue: \u00a0simply redirect Title X money to sliding-scale clinics that provide a full range of healthcare services, for men, women, and children.<\/p>\n

But what\u2019s the goal of this money: \u00a0is it to provide for healthcare, or to reduce pregnancies? \u00a0 And what\u2019s\u00a0Planned Parenthood\u2019s mission<\/a>?<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

* Disclaimer: \u00a0if you\u2019re a reader of the Patheos Catholic Channel, in general, you\u2019ll have recently been reading a number of number of blog posts by fellow bloggers on the subject of NFP, a subject I\u2019ve steered clear of. \u00a0Nonetheless, for purposes of this post, I\u2019m going to acknowledge that the consensus opinion in the United States is that women (and men) who otherwise can\u2019t afford it should receive governmental\u00a0assistance to provide them with both contraceptives and health care more generally. \u00a0I am discussing right and wrong ways to meet these goals. \u00a0Whether\u00a0there\u2019s something fundamentally wrong with these goals \u2014 whether people should just refrain from sex if they can\u2019t afford contraception and\/or whatever children might come their way with or without efforts to avoid them; whether hormonal contraception is the right way to go; whether government or private charity is the right way to go \u2014 I\u2019m not going to get into here.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(See disclaimer, below.) Title X is, of course, the program that funds contraception, as provided by Planned Parenthood and others, for low-income women. \u00a0Planned Parenthood is certainly not the only beneficiary of the program; as described by the HHS website, The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services\u2019 Office of Population Affairs (OPA) oversees the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2209,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2469","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nWhy does Title X funding still exist, post-Obamacare?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"(See disclaimer, below.) 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