Planned Parenthood Advocate

Health care reform must address health care challenges faced by rural women

by Sarah Stoesz
President
Planned Parenthood Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota Action Fund

“I can’t fill my prescription because I have to buy groceries.” One needs only to spend a day in any one of our health care centers to hear stories just like this and to see the need for meaningful health care reform.

Many of the women and families Planned Parenthood serves simply don’t have private insurance. And as a result of the economic downturn, more women who have lost their jobs and their insurance benefits are turning to us for preventative, primary health care.

Nowhere is the need for health care reform more evident than in rural Minnesota. Poverty, lack of insurance and limited access to health care combines to result in poorer outcomes for Minnesota’s rural women, especially when it comes to reproductive health.

Planned Parenthood Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota released a new report today that highlights the state of rural women’s health and calls attention to the challenges facing women in greater Minnesota. Download the pdf here.

More than half of our 64,000 patients live at or below the federal poverty level. In our 16 Greater Minnesota clinics, the number of patients living in poverty jumps to 63%.  Further, nearly 40% of rural Minnesotans live in communities without adequate access to needed primary care services

Geography and economic status should not determine a woman’s health or her fate. And the disparities experienced by rural women in Minnesota are intolerable. Today, we call on lawmakers to focus on the needs of rural women as they return to Washington D.C. to continue their important work on health care reform.

Consider the facts from numerous state based studies:

For many rural women, access to health care is limited at best, with more than half of Minnesota’s rural counties designated as health professional shortage areas due to an inadequate number of primary care providers.

Fewer rural women receive recommended, preventive gynecological care, including mammograms, breast and cervical cancer screenings and colorectal cancer screening than do their urban peers.

In Minnesota, rural women are 30% more likely to be diagnosed with invasive cervical cancer than are women living in metropolitan areas. Rural Minnesota women are also more likely to be diagnosed at an older age, and at a later stage of the disease, when treatment options may be less successful.

In order for health care reform to address the needs of rural women, it must include access to affordable health care services for all women, including comprehensive reproductive health care, regardless of income. It must include coverage for basic, preventive health care and protections for trusted safety net providers on whom women depend for their care, particularly given the shortage of primary care providers in rural communities.

Health care reform can help level the playing field for women who have been overlooked for too long. Rural women must not be left out of the most important public policy discussion of a generation. And as a leading provider of health care for rural women and families, we are committed to making certain their voices are heard.

Learn more about Rural Women’s health— Download the Report :Rural women's health 2009

 

VIDEO Addressing Health Care Reform Myths

Health care reform opponents are using abortion to distract from important issues like the health care disparities women face. Planned Parenthood is committed to making sure women's needs are met in any health care reform package.

For more factual information on health care reform myths, visit:
http://www.factcheck.org/2009/07/surgery-for-seniors-vs-abortions/
http://www.plannedparenthoodaction.org/healthreform/

**Please email this video to friends or copy and use this link http://www.plannedparenthoodadvocate.org/healthcaremyths or http://ow.ly/kLKd and share with your friends on facebook, myspace, and twitter.**

Ways to get involved:

Politicians need to hear real stories to understand the importance of improving women's health, so  we are collecting stories! Have you been to Planned Parenthood? Have you received free or affordable birth control? How about an annual exam, STI test, or a cervical cancer screening?  Tell us your story and why Planned Parenthood was an important health care provider for you. 

Write a letter to the editor:

If you've been reading your local newspaper, you've probably noticed that there's an awful lot of crazy things being said about women's health, family planning, birth control, and abortion--- can you help us dispel the misinformation by writing a letter to the editor? Contact Sally at shassell@ppmns.org, so that we can contact you when come across a letter that requires a pro-choice response chock full of some good ol' fashioned facts

Other ways to help!

Contribute to the Planned Parenthood Action Fund
Send a letter to Congress

 

Health Care Reform, Honestly

by Liz
Web Correspondent
Planned Parenthood Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota Action Fund

It would be an understatement to call the rhetoric around the health care reform debate either incendiary or intellectually dishonest. The Family Research Council has been running an attack ad campaign claiming that health care reform would mandate coverage of abortion services. (According to CNN.com, Catholics United, and FactCheck.org, among others, it would not.) Humanevents.com stated in an email to supporters, even more outrageously, that "Grandmas and Unborn Babies Face Extermination by Obama's 'Health' Care Plan."

I've seen a lot of people debunk the idea that there will be a mandate to cover abortion in health care reform, I've seen a number of different ideas about how to "save" health care reform from these accusations, and I've seen people argue that most of the US public supports health care coverage for abortions. One thing I've had trouble finding among all of this, though, is a reasoned discussion of health care reform. And that's significant. The boogeyman of abortion and the increasingly exaggerated claims about what health care reform will do is distracting us from issues that really need discussing and the problems with our health care system that really need fixing.

So what is important about health care reform?

Among other things, health care reform is very much a women's health issue. Since women are currently insured by public health care providers at a much higher rate than their male counterparts, they are even more in need of a comprehensive, low-cost health care program. The current health care program causes a significant problem with medical debt in this country: according to research done by the Commonwealth Fund in 2007, 1/3 of all women (and 1/4 of men) were either unable to pay for basic necessities like food or rent, had used up all their savings, had taken out a mortgage, or had taken on credit card debt because of medical bills. Not surprisingly, the least insured were the hardest hit: over half of underinsured women and almost half of uninsured women had made one of those decisions in the past two years. The end result of all these issues is that over half of all US women couldn't access needed, routine health care in 2007 because of access problems related to cost.

So: people should support health care reform because they support women having access to basic, needed health care without having to bankrupt themselves or send themselves into debt.

Discuss.

Speaking up for women's health at public health round table

by Sarah Stoesz
President
Planned Parenthood Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota Action Fund

Last week U. S. Senator Al Franken hosted a round table discussion with Minnesota’s public health community.  I was proud to join with my colleagues in public health to discuss the poor state of health care in America.  

The group included representatives from county public health agencies, as well as the Medical associations, the U of M School of Public Health, Minnesota chapter of National Alliance on Mental Illness, MN Institute of Public Health, Open Cities Health Center, Leech Lake Band of Ojibwa, Minnesota Public Health Association, American Heart Association and a number of others.

Senator Franken led us in a meaningful discussion about health care reform that is based on equity and access for all.  There is no doubt that Senator Franken will be a champion for the public health needs of our state as he works with his colleagues to fashion health care reform policy in America.
 
I shared some of my experiences as CEO of Planned Parenthood Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota.  We at Planned Parenthood are keenly aware that without access to reproductive health care, specifically birth control, women have little hope of escaping poverty. Direct access to reproductive health care is both a wellness and a justice issue.

PPMNS’ biggest concern is that women’s health be kept front and center throughout the health care reform discussion.  Our nation’s current patchwork system leaves nearly 1 in 5 young women uninsured.  They are at a significant disadvantage.

 

•    Compared with men, women require more medical services, have higher out-of-pocket medical costs and lower average incomes.
•    Women are less likely than men to be insured through their jobs (39 % v. 49%) and more likely to rely on public programs.
•    Women are more vulnerable to losing their insurance, if they become divorced or widowed, because they are more likely than men to be covered as dependents.
•    More than half of women (52%) delay or avoiding needed care because of cost, compared with 30% of men.
•    Women are more at risk than men of piling up medical debt they can’t pay (45% compared with 32%).

(stats via commonwealth fund)

Women need direct access to reproductive health care providers, because for many women, reproductive health care is often their primary or only source of care.  Community Health providers like Planned Parenthood must be part of the solution and must be included in any health care reform. 

Ninety-five percent of the care Planned Parenthood delivers is preventive and primary. Last year, our organization provided more than 300,000 units of contraception, 58,000 STI tests, 20,000 breast cancer screenings and 17,000 cervical cancer screenings. More than half of our 63,000-plus patients are at or below 100% of the federal poverty level. 81 percent of our patients are eligible for care at little or no cost. Only 5 percent of our patients can afford the full cost of their care. 75 percent of our patients do not have access to private insurance.

The forum was a great opportunity to have a thoughtful conversation with leaders in public health from across the state as we work to fashion health care reform. Thank you, Senator Franken for your attention to public health, prevention and wellness.

Giving teens the information they need

by Lee
Web Correspondent
Planned Parenthood Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota Action Fund 

I was browsing the Planned Parenthood website recently, when I found a piece of information that absolutely floored me.  There is apparently a contraceptive method about which I have been sorely misinformed.  This method is extremely easy to use, involves no complicated procedures, and it doesn’t cost a cent.  And, ladies and gentlemen, it is almost as effective as a condom.  What is this magnificent new technology, you ask?  It is the time-tested method of “pulling out.”  Yep, withdrawal.  According to the PP website, as well as a study published this May, with perfect use (male withdraws in time, every time) withdrawal has a failure rate of 4%, compared with a 2% failure rate for condoms. 

Now, if your junior high sex ed. class was anything like mine, your head may have just exploded in disbelief.  That was certainly my reaction upon reading this information: this can’t possibly be true, I thought.  Because in my junior high sex ed. class, pulling out was the laughingstock of all the contraceptive methods.  Pulling out was like a contraceptive wanna-be.  An idiot’s game—virtually the same as no contraception at all.  To find out otherwise gave me quite a shock.

Shocked as I am, however, it is not my intention to discuss the merits of pulling out as a contraceptive method.  The PP website lists the benefits and drawbacks more concisely than I could here, and I don’t really even know what I think about it myself--except that as a self-proclaimed control freak, 4% sounds like a frighteningly high failure rate to me (frankly, even 2% is a little risky for my tastes).  But this new revelation did get me thinking about all the myths I was told in sex ed.  Based on the (accurate) information I’ve learned as an adult, I’ve realized that my sex ed. class was pretty much a haze of euphemisms, gross exaggerations, missing pieces, and flat out lies.  For example, I learned in sex ed. that condoms will protect you from all STI’s (wrong—exhibit A, genital herpes); that if you ever have sex without contraception you are basically guaranteed to get pregnant (wrong again—as one of my struggling-to-conceive friends exclaimed after researching fertility cycles, “it’s actually a miracle anybody has ever gotten pregnant!”); and the most recently uncovered big whopper: that pulling out is totally useless and you might as well not even bother doing it.  And no, these weren’t playground rumors—these “facts” came straight out of the mouth of my sex ed. teacher.  Even more than that, what wasn’t mentioned in my sex ed. class seems almost more striking to me now than what was mentioned.  In my sex ed. class, abortions did not exist, homosexual sex did not exist, people who had sex before marriage and went on to lead normal healthy lives did not exist, and female enjoyment of sex did not exist.

Which leads me to ask: why are we feeding our kids all this misinformation?  I know sex ed. has probably changed a bit since I took it, but apparently it hasn’t changed enough.  According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (cited on the PP website), by age 25, half of us will have an STI.  Half.  And this year, 750,000 teen girls in the U.S. will become pregnant.  Clearly, whatever we’ve been doing in sex ed., it isn’t working as well as it needs to. 

At this point, it seems pretty clear to me that too many of our decisions about what to teach our kids about sex stem from fear.   But what are we so afraid of?  Are we afraid that the information about contraception and protection is too complicated for them to understand?  That they are incapable of making good decisions?  Are we afraid that if we admit sex can be a whole lot of fun they’ll all turn into sex-crazed maniacs?  Really? 

Okay, now I encounter a lot of teenagers in my day job, and I know they are not famous for being the best decision-makers.  In fact, the frontal lobe of the brain, which controls executive function (the part that helps us with self-control and planning for the future), doesn’t fully develop until the early 20’s.  But I think we need to give teens a little more credit.  They may be impulsive, they may be emotionally driven, but they’re not stupid.  Every day, they make decisions that will affect the rest of their lives.  In every other important arena, we almost beg them to find out more information.  Which college to attend?  Do some research.  Play hockey or soccer?  Find out more about both teams.  So do we really think sexuality is different?  Do we really think teens will make better decisions about sex with incorrect or incomplete information?  This just doesn’t make sense.

What if we reconsidered?  What if we trusted our children to do the right thing, whatever that is for them, and what if we armed them with the best information out there?  And what if we taught them not just the dry statistics about sex, but information about how to grow into their sexuality?  What if, instead of trying to scare them away from ever having sex, we taught them how to make that decision for themselves, not based on an age or a wedding date, but based on their own feelings and maturity?  What if we faced our fears, and did right by our kids instead of ignoring the problem and pretending abstinence is the only answer?

It makes me sad that I can barely even envision what that might be like.  But I can promise you this—I’d rather have taken that sex ed. class than mine.