The Defunding of Women's Health Care in Texas May Force Rural Clinics to Close
We keep hammering away at this same general point, but really: It's been a terrible year for family planning providers in Texas. First the Legislature moved $73.6 million out of the state family-planning budget for the next two years . At the same time, they changed to a tiered funding structure that meant clinics that "only" provide family planning services are now third in line to receive what little money is left over, after public community clinics and federally qualified health centers. Then the fight between Texas and the feds over whether Planned Parenthood could legally be barred from the state's Medicaid Women's Health Program ended with the federal government pulling their money from the program, which was 90 percent of the WHP's funding.
The end result? Family planning and women's health services have been cut so deeply it's doubtful they can ever fully recover. Planned Parenthood has been badly hurt, but they're not the only ones. A rural clinic director we spoke to recently is bracing herself for the possibility that she'll have to close all of her family planning clinics for good, a situation many similar community health agencies now face. And with a clientele that's very young and very poor, the director knows exactly what that closing her clinics will mean: "These women just won't be seen. They'll get pregnant or be sick."
Tama Shaw is the director of Hill Country Community Action Association, a rural agency based in San Saba. Community action agencies exist to provide services to very low-income families -- things like child care, elder assistance and help paying for utilities. When we first spoke with Shaw in October, she had just lost 55 percent of the Title XX money she once received from the state. If any more money was lost, she feared all five of the rural family planning clinics HCCAA oversees would have to close. Then the WHP fight happened, and that fear looked a lot more like a reality.
"If there's no money to replace the WHP, we shut down," she says bluntly. Charging the clients more money to make up some of the difference is out of the question. Nearly all of her family planning patients currently pay nothing to be seen, because they're simply too poor: 100 percent below the poverty line or more. "We just couldn't charge our clients enough to stay in business without federal assistance."
http://blogs.dallasobserver.com/unfairpark/2012/03/as_the_womens_health_program_w.php
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It is a war on women in Texas. Any kind of medical service women receive will be cut and potentially women will die sooner - for not having seen a doctor earlier. Breast cancer, cervical cancer, preventable and treatable STDs etc. But the republicans don't care if women do die. 
