The liberal media and those who use the euphemism “abortion care” are speaking out against the GOP’s Graham-Cassidy healthcare bill because it restricts the use of Medicaid at Planned Parenthood clinics, and includes other federal funding restrictions.
Here’s the good news for pro-life Americans, shared as bad news by Slate.
“Like the last health care bill the Senate rejected, this one would be disastrous for women’s health,” Slate reported. “It would cut off poor women’s access to Planned Parenthood, decimate the private insurance market for abortion coverage, allow states to let insurance companies cut essential health benefits for women, and—this is some new garbage—restrict how states can cover abortion care.”
“The Graham-Cassidy proposal would accomplish several major rollbacks of women’s health care that Republicans have been trying to push through for years,” Slate reported. “First, it would block the use of federal Medicaid dollars at Planned Parenthood health centers, a so-called ‘defunding’ measure.”
Then Slate promotes Planned Parenthood as a health clinic, while leaving out the fact that it’s also the largest abortion provider in the United States. According to its annual report, in 2015-2016, Planned Parenthood reports performing 328,348 abortions—an increase of 4,349 abortions over the 323,999 abortions the group states it performed in 2014-2015.
But, according to Slate, an end to federal funding for Planned Parenthood is “dangerous” and will create “health care deserts.”
“Over half of Planned Parenthood’s client base—more than 1 million patients—currently gets its health care through Medicaid,” Slate reported.
“For all these patients, Graham-Cassidy would cause a possibly dangerous disruption in care; for those who live in rural areas or health care deserts, where the majority of Planned Parenthood clinics sit, it could mean an end to accessible reproductive health care altogether,” according to Slate.
And there’s more good news:
“The bill would prohibit the use of health care tax credits for both individuals and small businesses on private insurance plans that cover abortion care,” Slate reported. “That means any woman who gets tax credits because she neither qualifies for Medicaid nor gets insurance through her employer would not be able to purchase abortion coverage with those credits on the individual market.”
“People who work for small businesses that use tax credits to offer health insurance benefits would also be left without abortion coverage,” Slate reported.
And, according to Slate, the rules for receiving federal block grants in the Graham-Cassidy legislation also would restrict abortion in left-wing states — California, Massachusetts and New York — where insurance companies that cover maternity benefits are also required to cover abortions.
“If they wanted to use the block grants to subsidize parts of their health care programs, they would have to limit abortion coverage to those parts that didn’t include federal money,” Slate reported.
Slate did not report, however, on federally funded community health clinics that help women with real health issues but do not provide abortions. These clinics outnumber Planned Parenthood clinics 20-1 across the United States.
“With about 20 times more locations than Planned Parenthood, federally funded health centers serve tens of millions more patients than Planned Parenthood, offer substantially more health services than Planned Parenthood does, are located in specifically rural areas … and are required to offer transportation assistance,” the Charlotte Lozier Institute reported in 2015.
“If government money that currently goes to Planned Parenthood were to be reallocated to these thousands of low-cost health clinics across the United States, it is eminently reasonable to expect that they can expand transportation services and even focus on a public outreach campaign for ‘transition assistance’ for former Planned Parenthood clients,” the Institute concluded.