A Stimulus Package without Contraception Provision
Today, after weeks of often tense negotiations, President Obama signs the economic stimulus package into law. The final version of the stimulus package will contain many stipulations for basic health care, but will notably not contain a provision that would have allowed states to more easily extend Medicaid coverage for family planning services.
House Republicans demanded that the provision be dropped amid a mainstream media debate marked by its misinformation and dismissive innuendo.
Early in the process, Rep. John Boehner claimed the stimulus package included a $200 million budget request for contraception. But the proposal simply eliminated a long application process before states can expand Medicaid family planning services and over 5 years would have helped an estimated 2.3 million low-income women prevent unintended pregnancies.
The $200 million figure Rep. Boehner mistakenly referenced was the estimated amount the provision would have saved the government within 5 years, according to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO). After 10 years, projected savings would reach $700 million.
From the tone and quality of the media debate that ensued, however, you’d never have guessed the provision was so benign.
Representatives tittered through a House Caucus meeting on the subject. Chris Matthews, in all apparent seriousness, compared expanding access to contraception to China’s one-child policy. Fox New’s Neal Cavuto, asked with a wink, “How is this, no pun intended, ’stimulative’ of the economy?”
Had he really wanted to know, plenty of people could have answered that question. Many, including House Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi, tried without much success to explain how making it easier to provide basic reproductive health care to low-income women would provide much-needed relief to women affected by the economic crisis and save the government money by reducing unintended pregnancies.
On The Huffington Post, Julie Menin of the DNC’s Women’s Leadership Forum explained that in a stimulus bill designed to offer relief, reform, and reconstruction, the contraception provision would fall into the “relief” category:
The family planning aid fails under the rubric of “relief” for those who are struggling in this dire economy. Close to 50 million Americans lack health care coverage and 40 percent of all Americans have medical debts. Just as the New Deal created jobs and built new infrastructure and provided relief in the form of aid to those who needed it most, our economic stimulus bill must provide relief on the vital issue of basic health care.
On the New York Times Economix Blog, Nancy Folbre, an economics professor at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, discussed the often over-looked effects of family planning spending on the economy, writing, “Increased spending on family planning (including contraceptives) would generate about as many direct and indirect jobs as any other health expenditures, and probably more than an equivalent tax cut.” The Brookings Institution also offered an analysis of the beneficial impact of the policy.
President of the National Family Planning & Reproductive Health Association, Mary Jane Gallagher, perhaps summarized the benefits of the contraception provision best on RH Reality Check:
The vehement opposition to a provision that would enable states to provide quality, essential health care to millions of women, all the while creating jobs AND saving the government precious tax dollars is beyond the limits of reason…until you realize that reason has nothing to do with it.
The American public similarly understands the benefits of expanding access to affordable contraception. A new survey by the YWCA and National Women’s Law Center found that nearly three-quarters of 1,000 self-identified Republicans and Independents favor legislation that would make it easier for people at all income levels to obtain contraception.
President Obama has assured women’s health advocates that the proposal, or a similar one, though stripped from the stimulus package, will be reintroduced on its own or added onto another piece of legislation in the near future. Hopefully, the next time around, the discussion—in both Congress and the media—will focus more on the merits of the provision and less on how many times one can make a pun with the word “stimulate.”
By Maya Dusenbery
February 25th, 2009 at 7:25 pm
[…] Recognizing the savings associated with the program, 21 states have chosen to expand eligibility for family planning for low-income women who otherwise would not qualify for Medicaid. However, in order to do so, states must first go through a time-consuming process to get a federal waiver, and a proposal to eliminate this cumbersome red tape was unfortunately dropped from the economic stimulus package last month after adamant Republican opposit…. […]