At It Again: Texas Continues To Undercut Access To Reproductive Health Care

Texas policymakers are once again demonstrating their contempt for reproductive health care, the health care providers who offer those services, and the women who rely on them. The state has spent years crippling a once-successful program supporting family planning and related services for low-income residents — all in service of an ideological agenda to shut out and shut down health centers that have any connection to abortion services. Now, the state is asking the like-minded Trump administration to provide an infusion of federal funding to support its diminished program. In the process, Texas and the Trump administration could set dangerous new precedents that could undermine family planning care in Medicaid programs nationwide. The Need for Publicly Funded Services Publicly funded family planning services are especially important in a state like Texas, where women are particularly likely to be poor, uninsured, and at risk of an unintended pregnancy. Sixteen percent of Texas residents—4.3 million—were living below the federal poverty level in 2015; only 13 states and the District of Columbia had higher poverty rates. In part because Texas policymakers have refused to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and help the state’s most underserved residents, Texas has the highest proportion of residents who are uninsured in the country — for residents overall (16 percent) and for women of reproductive age specifically (24 percent). Moreove...
Source: Health Affairs Blog - Category: Health Management Authors: Tags: Medicaid and CHIP Public Health Quality contraceptive coverage Planned Parenthood Section 1115 Waivers Texas Women's Health Source Type: blogs