FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: June 16, 2015
Contact: Ponta Abadi, (202) 293-3114 ext. 219, pabadi@nfprha.org

House Subcommittee Funding Proposal Eliminates Family Planning Program

WASHINGTON, DC – The National Family Planning & Reproductive Health Association (NFPRHA) issued the following statement in response to the House Appropriations Labor-HHS Subcommittee funding proposal released today, attributed to NFPRHA’s President & CEO, Clare Coleman:

“The House Appropriations Labor-HHS Subcommittee today issued a fiscal year 2016 funding proposal that would eliminate funding for the Title X family planning program, the nation’s only grant program solely dedicated to providing family planning and other preventive health care to low-income, under-insured, and uninsured individuals who otherwise would lack access to care.

“This bill being advanced comes with enormous risk and sacrifice to the public’s health. An elimination of Title X would have a devastating impact on the nearly 4.6 million Americans who may no longer have access to high-quality, patient-centered family planning and sexual health care services. For many of these women and men, a Title X-funded health center is their only access point to the health system and the only health care they receive all year. 

“Earlier this month, NFPRHA released national public opinion polling results that again demonstrate women’s strong support for increased funding for family planning. According to poll findings, women are three times more likely to support a member of Congress who wanted an increase in federal funding for family planning than a member of Congress who wanted to cut funding. Nearly half (47%) of all Republican women polled said they support increased funding.

“As difficult as the past five years without new resources have been, today’s funding proposal is simply a non-starter. The network of publicly funded family planning providers that has long been underfunded has already been eroded. Fewer resources would set off a cascade of effects that would push the family planning safety net beyond its breaking point – prompt health center closures, force layoffs among clinicians and administrators, and severely cripple service delivery capacity, all of which translate to fewer women and men who would be able to access the critical health care they need."

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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 875 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.