Letter to the Editor: Oppose legislation being discussed in Des Moines this week

State Senator Michael Breitbach

(The following Letter to the Editor has been e-mailed by Shirley Vermace of Decorah):

Senate File #2, co-sponsored by our area's senator, Mike Breitbach, will be discussed in committee this week.  It proposes changes to current funding for family planning services in Iowa. The purpose of this legislation is to eliminate the Iowa Family Planning Network Waiver (IFPN) which helps low income men and women pay for their services at these clinics.
 
Without the Iowa Family Planning Network Waiver (IFPN), our local Family Planning Clinic, located in the old hospital building on Montgomery Street in Decorah, will close.  It had 1,373 visits last year, with 612 using IFPN as Source of Payment (SOP).  75 percent of clients are at or below 100 percent of the Federal Poverty level, which means they would receive family planning program services at 100 percent discount if no insurance coverage were available for billing.
 
For many of the young men and women the clinic provides preventative health care services to, it is their primary source of health care. They have not yet established a medical home. The elimination of the IFPN would likely leave 600-800 people without their source of primary healthcare.  Many patients know how important it is to get FP services with assurance of confidentiality. I think that truly they would just go without if the clinic in Decorah was not here.

The increased likelihood of pregnancy for these low-income individuals is a concern for our social service dollars. The inability of women in abusive relationships to have access to birth control is a concern. Our local clinic offers health screening services at their facility; other health screenings (FSH/LH, Lipid Panel, Glucose), Hepatitis Panel, Pap/Repap Smears, breast exams, thyroid exams and referrals for other health services. They screen for interpersonal relationship violence and provide reproductive life education.

Even with more people having insurance coverage, many have $5,000 to $6,000 deductibles to meet; patients still need the wavier to receive that secondary coverage, as patients simply cannot afford the cost of services, let alone an unplanned pregnancy.

Without funding to offer services, the local clinic is losing basic preventative healthcare services for their patients.
 
Basic Data about the clinic services here in Decorah:

--Cancer Screenings: Breast Exams-283; Pap/Repap 170 ; HPV Screenings-60
--Contraceptive Services- the local clinic provided 69 Implants (three years of birth control coverage), 26 IUDs (5 or 10 years of coverage). The local clinic continues to provide oral contraceptives, hormonal injections, Nuva-rings, and condoms.
--Infertility Prevention Screenings- 455

For every dollar spent on Family Planning, the local clinic receives 90 cents from the feds and the state only pays 10 cents, so there is a financial savings to the tax-payers of Iowa to continue allowing Family Planning Providers to bill Medicaid!

We all know the state legislators aren't concerned about those federal dollars coming into Iowa because they know the new congress in Washington is planning on eliminating those dollars for family planning anyway! This is so absurd, they can't even see the forest through the trees!

THE SERVICES ALL THESE CLINICS PROVIDE, including Planned Parenthood of Iowa, have helped abortion rates DROP over the last 40 years in this country! If their end-game is preventing the need for abortions and the rate of unwanted pregnancies, they are about to close the very services that are actually making that happen!

Please contact Mike Breitbach, his cell phone number(which is posted for him on the www.iowa.gov official website) is (563) 920-7399.  His home phone number (also found on www.iowa.gov) is (563) 933-6486.  His email is michael.breitbach@legis.iowa.gov