Put patients over politics: Planned Parenthood must be funded

I am a healthcare provider and I specialize in working with women’s health. One of my biggest concerns about the new draft of the Senate healthcare bill is how people who rely on Planned Parenthood for medical care will have great difficulty or won’t be able to get treatment. The bill currently blocks Planned Parenthood from getting federal funding from Medicaid for a year.

It is so important to recognize that Planned Parenthood saves lives, potentially hundreds of thousands of lives per year. Planned Parenthood tests and treats over 4.2 million people for STD’s per year. It provides over 320,000 breast exams and almost 295,000 Pap tests per year. Within the 11 Health Centers throughout the Southwest and Central Florida area alone, over 68,000 patients were treated at Planned Parenthood.

The people who rely on Planned Parenthood for health care, especially those in poor and rural communities, will not have anywhere to turn if the Senate healthcare bill passes. There are not enough providers to cover all of the services Planned Parenthood supplies. I believe it is time to put patients over politics.

It will be truly tragic for so many women to lose access to vital, life saving services if the Senate healthcare bill passes.

This story was originally published June 30, 2017 at 2:32 PM with the headline "Put patients over politics: Planned Parenthood must be funded."