A new estimate from the Guttmacher Institute calculates the impact of the Title X gag rule: a 47% drop in the program’s capacity to serve female patients, most of whom have low incomes and few other options for receiving high-quality family planning services.
Reproductive & Sexual Health
As Title X gag rule takes effect, providers choose between federal funds and high-quality care
The Title X family planning program has long provided voluntary, high-quality, evidence-based care to clients with low incomes, but its ability to uphold standards of care and its own programmatic requirements is under threat.
Public Health Practice
Worth reading: Title X gag rule, Time’s Up Healthcare, and cutting child poverty
Recent pieces address the Title X gag rule, the debut of Time’s Up Healthcare, Medicaid work requirements, and more.
The comment deadline on the Trump administration’s Title X gag rule is Tuesday, July 31. If implemented, it will severely damage a successful program that used to enjoy bipartisan support and that has helped millions of low-income people access high-quality reproductive healthcare.
The Trump administration’s latest move to deny reproductive autonomy to women with low incomes takes the form of a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on major changes to the Title X family planning program.
In addition to a problematic funding announcement, the Title X program faces grantee selection from an abstinence-only advocate and the threat of elimination from House Republicans.
About two weeks ago, federal health officials released a new funding announcement for the nation’s Title X family planning program, which serves millions of women each year. In the entire 60-page document, you won’t find the words “contraception” or “contraceptive” mentioned even once.
Affordable Care Act
More research that defunding Planned Parenthood simply leaves women without needed health care
To the surprise of literally no one, President Trump’s 2018 budget proposed stripping all federal funds, including Medicaid dollars, from Planned Parenthood. Proponents of this argue that if Planned Parenthood clinics end up shuttered, women can simply access care elsewhere. But growing research shows that’s the opposite of what actually happens.
With House Speaker Paul Ryan now stating that he’s going to try again on legislation to “replace” the Affordable Care Act, it’s worth looking at some of the ways the ACA has benefited women – and how actions from Congress and the Trump administration could affect women’s insurance coverage and access to care.
New data from CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics show that the US teen birth rate dropped substantially between 2007 and 2015, but it has declined most slowly in rural areas.