CA provides Planned Parenthood $140 million to maintain clinics open

By Kristen Hwang, CalIssues

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After months of monetary pressure, Planned Parenthood will get a $140 million lifeline to offset losses it sustained after Congress in July reduce funding for the well being system, Gov. Gavin Newsom introduced Thursday.

The cash will assist Planned Parenthood hold 109 California clinics open. In a press release, Newsom stated the transfer displays the state’s continued dedication to abortion and reproductive well being care.

“Trump’s efforts to defund Planned Parenthood put all our communities at risk as people seek basic health care from these community providers,” Newsom stated.

Lawmakers may also take up the problem in January when the Legislature reconvenes.

The information comes per week after the nonprofit group introduced it could eliminate primary care at clinics in Orange and San Bernardino counties. Five different clinics additionally closed in July within the Bay Area, Santa Cruz and Central Valley, all in response to federal defunding.

Planned Parenthood wants roughly $27 million month-to-month to function all of its native amenities, based on Jodi Hicks, president and chief government of Planned Parenthood Affiliates of California, the group’s statewide advocacy group.

“We’re incredibly grateful that we’ve found a way to get some funding out to our Planned Parenthood health centers so they can remain operating and continue services,” Hicks stated. 

California is the fourth state, following Washington, Colorado and New Mexico, to pledge public funds to maintain Planned Parenthood afloat. Lawmakers in Oregon and New York are additionally contemplating comparable strikes.

Republicans have lambasted and focused Planned Parenthood for many years over contraceptive and abortion providers. A 1977 regulation banned federal funding for abortions, however this summer season President Donald Trump took extra steps to chop down the nation’s largest abortion supplier.

His sweeping tax and finances invoice prohibited Planned Parenthood from receiving Medicaid {dollars} for any sorts of providers, together with mammograms, pap smears, contraception and sexually transmitted an infection testing and remedy.

According to Planned Parenthood, abortions account for lower than 10% of its providers, whereas different reproductive well being providers make up the majority of medical care offered.

Federal funding losses have pressured Planned Parenthood to shut clinics throughout the nation, the place half of all sufferers depend on Medicaid. In California, the place 80% of Planned Parenthood sufferers have Medicaid – often called Medi-Cal within the state – the losses are even larger.

“There was definitely an outsized impact on California,” Hicks stated.

Primary care closures ripple throughout the state

Democratic lawmakers, Newsom and Planned Parenthood have spent a lot of the 12 months looking for a funding resolution that protects reproductive well being entry with out money from federal coffers. But, confronted with a multibillion-dollar state deficit, options have been sluggish to seem and difficult to take care of.

“We’ll fight like hell to maintain access to care in the coming months and years,” stated Assembly Majority Leader Cecilia Aguiar-Curry, a Davis Democrat who leads the Legislative Women’s Caucus,

Even with the state’s pledge to guard sexual and reproductive well being care, Planned Parenthood clinics face rising uncertainty pushed by federal grant freezes, lawsuits and even some proposed state cuts.

Last week, Planned Parenthood in Orange and San Bernardino counties introduced amenities would shut main care providers on Dec. 13. The group, which runs 9 well being facilities, added main care greater than a decade in the past to serve low-income sufferers unable to search out appointments elsewhere. 

Dr. Janet Jacobson, medical director of the Orange and San Bernardino counties clinics, stated the federal actions are “destroying our primary care program.” She stated she worries sufferers with pressing psychological well being wants or power circumstances received’t be capable to shortly discover one other supplier. Many communities within the area have too few docs, based on state data.

Roughly 13,000 sufferers will lose entry to care and Planned Parenthood will lay off 77 employees.

“It’s inhumane to take away people’s health care,” Jacobson stated. “Folks that have Medi-Cal should be able to see the provider of their choice for primary care.”

Aguiar-Curry referred to as the lack of main care “unacceptable and dangerous.” 

Seeking stability as ‘financial cliff’ nonetheless looms

Farther north, Planned Parenthood Mar Monte — which runs 30 well being facilities alongside the California coast, Central Valley and Nevada — closed 5 well being facilities in July shortly after Trump blocked Planned Parenthood’s funding.

Mar Monte Chief of Staff Andrew Adams stated the group has been working to take care of its monetary stability. The closures helped protect providers on the group’s different clinics till the tip of the 12 months, however Adams warned that it may hit a “financial cliff” in January. 

“We are planning for an environment where there is no federal funding,” Adams stated. “What that looks like is having to potentially charge patients some amount of money for services we provide.”

Other Planned Parenthood teams within the state are exploring methods to chop prices and enhance income whereas preserving clinics open for sufferers.

Dr. Neda Ashtari, a former Planned Parenthood and Medi-Cal affected person, emphasised the significance of guaranteeing greater than 1 million sufferers proceed to have entry to most cancers screenings and different reproductive well being providers. When Ashtari was a young person, her mom died of breast most cancers after lacking routine scans that would have detected the most cancers earlier, she stated.

“It really crystallizes that this preventative care is the difference between life or death,” Ashtari stated.

Supported by the California Health Care Foundation (CHCF), which works to make sure that folks have entry to the care they want, once they want it, at a value they will afford. Visit www.chcf.org to be taught extra.

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