FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE - September 17, 2015

Contact: Audrey Sandusky, 202-293-3114 ext. 207

Black Bill Puts Politics over Patients 

Following the House Rules Committee’s meeting on consideration of HR 3134 , the Defund Planned Parenthood Act of 2015, Clare Coleman, President & CEO of the National Family Planning & Reproductive Health Association (NFPRHA) issued the following statement:

WASHINGTON, DC –  “As the national membership organization representing publicly funded family planning providers, NFPRHA strongly opposes HR 3134, sponsored by Rep. Diane Black (R-TN), that would place a one-year moratorium on all federal funding for Planned Parenthood, including the Title X family planning program and Medicaid, and redirect funding only to federally qualified health centers (FQHC) during the same period.

“This last-minute political maneuvering demonstrates that the bill’s supporters have not done their homework on America’s family planning and community health safety net. FQHCs cannot assume every demand and every health burden in a large, diverse country, and it is a disservice to patients who get health care in the safety net to blithely assert that they must transfer their care, their medical records and their trust from their chosen provider to Congress’ choice of provider. 

“The Title X program’s mission is to help people both achieve and prevent pregnancy, services that millions of women and men need each year. In fact, for some people, it is the only health care they seek -- four in ten women seen at Title X-funded centers say that a family planning center is their sole health care provider. Title X funding enables a health center to offer services well beyond what an FQHC might offer, including information and education, the full range of contraceptive methods, STD screening and treatment, and cervical cancer screening. By contrast, as communities confront a growing disease burden, FQHCs are seeing patients in great need of chronic disease treatment and prevention. Across the FQHC network, 60% of patients are women and 27% are women of childbearing age; however, among health centers that do not receive Title X funding, only 2% of their annual visits include contraceptive management.

“When our legislators vote against family planning, they are voting against strong, healthy families in thriving communities. They are voting against helping people make the decisions that are right for themselves and their loved ones. Congress should defeat this bill.” 

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NFPRHA represents the broad spectrum of family planning administrators and clinicians serving the nation's low-income and uninsured. NFPRHA’s more than 900 member organizations operate or fund a network of nearly 5,000 health centers and service sites that provide comprehensive family planning services to millions of low-income and uninsured or underinsured individuals in 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and Guam.