Perry: "We'll Find the Money" for Women's Health Program
Gov. Rick Perry on Thursday directed state officials to begin looking for money to keep the Medicaid Women's Health Program, even if the Obama administration revokes federal funding amid a fight over clinics affiliated with abortion providers.
"We'll find the money. The state is committed to this program," Perry told reporters, shortly before he issued a letter directing Thomas Suehs, head of the Texas Health and Human Services Commission, to work with legislative leaders and identify money to keep the program going if federal funds are halted.
But pulling that off will be no mean feat: The program costs about $40 million, and the federal government currently covers 90 percent of that.
The health program provides care to about 130,000 low-income women statewide. It had been expected to close next week, when Texas begins enforcing a law passed last summer that bars state funding from clinics affiliated with abortion providers. The Obama administration has said it will stop funding the program because federal law requires women to be able to choose any qualified clinic.
http://www.nbcdfw.com/news/politics/Perry-Well-Find-the-Money-for-Womens-Health-Program-142008683.html
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Texas Looks To Fund Medicaid Women's Health Program Without Federal Funds
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The law is part of a long-running campaign by conservatives in the Republican-dominated Texas Legislature to shut down abortion providers by imposing strenuous regulations and cutting off state and federal funds for their non-abortion services. Perry and Republican state lawmakers specifically don't want Planned Parenthood clinics, which treat 40 percent of the program's patients, to get any state funding, even when that money is not spent on abortions.
That has created a legal standoff, with federal and state officials accusing each other of political extremism while poor women will be left without necessary health care. The Women's Health Program serves women ages 18-44 earning less than $20,000 a year or less than $41,000 for a family of four.
Perry did not specify where the funding for the Women's Health Program might be found. "We've got a multibillion-dollar budget, so we've got the ability to be flexible on where the money comes from," he said after an event at Texas Republican Party headquarters.
His letter to Suehs noted officials have been discussing the possibility of making up lost federal funding in the Women's Health Program for weeks.
I hope the national media keeps the spotlight on Perry and his republican women haters. Let's see him cough up an extra 40 million! I want the country to continue to see the failure Perry has been and for them to recognize that Texas is ground zero for the war on women. And women are losing in Texas big time. And hopefully Texas women voters are paying close attention and will finally wake up and start voting to protect their needs!
Questions Linger Over Women's Health Program
By vowing that he would find the money to fund the Women’s Health Program without the federal government’s help, Gov. Rick Perry advanced two of his goals. He found a legal way to force Planned Parenthood clinics — which were not performing abortions — out of the program. And he gained ammunition in his state’s rights fight against the Obama administration.
But his pronouncement, made the week before the federal government was expected to cut off funding to the program over a new Texas rule that excludes Planned Parenthood clinics — left many questions unanswered.
Though Perry says the state has the medical capacity to continue to treat the more than 100,000 women enrolled in the program without Planned Parenthood clinics, other health leaders vehemently disagree. And Perry didn’t say where cash-strapped Texas will find the roughly $30 million per year the federal government provides to help low-income women on Medicaid receive birth control, cancer screenings and STD tests.
"Given the number of women that are looking for services as a result of the financial cuts" of the last legislative session, said Jose Camacho, executive director of the Texas Association of Community Health Centers, "there's no way that health centers that have undergone similar cuts will be able to build that type of capacity very quickly."
