Family Planning Advocates: 'Family planning funding is smart budgeting for the state'

ALBANY, NY (01/11/2010)(readMedia)-- Hundreds of family planning advocates from across the state converged on The Capitol today at Family Planning Advocates of New York State's (FPA) Women's Health Matters! Day of Action to urge state officials to fully fund family planning in the 2010-11 budget.

Before meeting with their legislators, advocates heard from Gov. Paterson and other state leaders on their commitment to the women and families of New York, as well as from keynote speaker and New York Times Best selling Author Michelle Goldberg, author of The Means of Reproduction: Sex, Power and the Future of the World.

Family Planning Advocates' event comes at a critical time. "Without full funding from the state this year, family planning health centers who are serving clients today, Monday, January 11, 2010, may not be able to meet those health care needs later this year," said M. Tracey Brooks, President and CEO of FPA.

"If New York is to rebuild its economic infrastructure as Gov. Paterson addressed in his State of the State speech last week, we have to keep women and families healthy and strong," Brooks asserted. "Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made a direct correlation between access to reproductive health care and worldwide economic stability during a speech just last Friday on the 15th anniversary of the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo."

But amid financial crisis for both the state and family planning centers, family planning advocates bring their legislators good news: Funding family planning saves New York money in the same fiscal year.

•For every $1 spent on family planning services in New York, $4 in Medicaid costs are saved in the same budget year.

•For every Medicaid dollar New York spends on family planning the federal government reimburses the state 90 cents. This 90/10 match saves the state money in the same budget year.

Fully funding family planning is not only smart budgeting-it upholds New York's long legacy of legislative policy that supports access to full reproductive health care, according to Brooks.

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Family planning health care providers face host of fiscal challenges

For over a decade, the financial circumstances of family planning centers have run counter to the state's policy commitment to reproductive health. More than 15 years of static Medicaid rates, compounded by funding cuts in the past few years and delayed contract approvals and reimbursements, have diminished access to vital reproductive health care services.

To compound matters, an increasing number of patients visiting family planning centers in the state can only afford to pay at the lowest end of the sliding scale. Plus, family planning providers are one of the only diagnostic and treatment centers in the state with no access to bad debt reimbursement, making their financial struggles even more dire.

"Having the laws and regulations that promote reproductive health care and choice is very different from having access to those services and the ability to carry out those choices," said Sandra Rivera, chair of FPA's Board of Directors.

Funding cuts reduce health care services

More than 6 in 10 patients receiving care at a women's health center consider it their primary source of health care. Further cuts to family planning funding could force health centers to cut hours and services and even close doors. This would be devastating to the communities that rely on family planning health care centers for inexpensive, comprehensive services.

Cutting funding for family planning would reduce access to core health care services including:

• breast and cervical cancer screenings,

• pregnancy testing,

• prenatal care,

• postpartum care,

• family planning counseling and contraception counseling,

• health education, and

• treatment and counseling for sexually transmitted infections and disease.

During the Women's Health Matters! Day of Action, the advocates' message to their legislators echoed throughout the Capitol's offices, hallways and chambers: "Keep our doors open."