Wednesday, January 12, 2011

Gregoire Restores Funding to Planned Parenthood, Cuts Billions Everywhere Else

Confirming once again that the Washington State Governor's Mansion is little more than the Olympia office of Planned Parenthood, Governor Christine Gregoire just decided to preserve the state's "Take Charge" free birth control program.

We have exposed how the program, now in its 10th year, has done almost nothing to reduce the rate of unwanted pregnancies, births to low-income women, or abortions, but has become a massive, multi-million dollar slush fund for Planned Parenthood affiliates of Washington.

As everyone now knows, the state has been facing a budget deficit in the billions, and state legislators have been forced to cut spending on a host of health and education programs, even those which are widely supported, and which help the truly sick and destitute.

The Department of Social and Health Services (DSHS) gave Gregoire a list of programs for possible elimination. The Take Charge program was in that list, raising hopes that the scandalous scheme would be eliminated once and for all, and abortion clinics would start closing immediately.

But, alas, Gregoire decided to cut the state's Basic Health Plan, which covers 66,000 otherwise uninsured Washingtonians, rather than cut birth control payments to Planned Parenthood.

She cut the Children’s Health Program, which was helping 27,000 kids. But Planned Parenthood's sacred cow was untouched.

She chose to eliminate Disability Lifeline grants to 28,000 people each month who are temporarily disabled and who can’t work, rather than cut the Planned Parenthood CEO Cadillac plan.

She chose to eliminate the Disability Lifeline Medical Program, but not the Abortion Industry Slush Fund.

Gregoire cuddling former NARAL
director Karen Cooper
She thought it better to reduce in-home Medicaid personal care, which benefits 45,000 people, who will now have to look elsewhere for assistance with bathing, dressing, medication management and other activities. But the Planned Parenthood spendapalooza? Not on your life.

She slashed public education funding in every direction. But free birth control that essentially ends up as millions of dollars in Planned Parenthood's Abortion Clinic Expansion Program was off the table.

You get the idea.

"Take Charge" -- which is exclusive to Washington State, and started in the George W Bush administration -- is an 'experimental' Medicaid program which provides a year's supply of birth control to women who would normally be ineligible for Medicaid because of income at taxpayer's expense.

Most women enrolled in the program get their contraceptives through Planned Parenthood, so it is this organization which ends up getting paid. PP makes huge profits on oral contraceptives sales, and so the program has been a cash cow for them for a decade.

For example, in 1998, Planned Parenthood of Western Washington was pulling in about $5m each year in program revenue. Ten years later, in 2008, that figure had rocketed up to over $25m. In their 2006 annual report, they admitted that fully 70% of their clients the previous 5 years had been Take Charge participants.

PPWW has used these millions in revenue to expand their network of clinics, all of which provide or abortions or at least close the abortion sale.

Defenders of the program argue that all those women on free birth control adds up to fewer unplanned pregnancies, fewer Medicaid-paid births, and fewer abortions. As hard as it may be for contraceptive ideologues to accept this, the numbers are in, and the truth is just the opposite.

In 1999, before the program, Medicaid was paying for 32,000 births each year, at a cost of less than $200 million. Now it's 42,000, at a cost of over $330 million.

Before the program began, Medicaid paid for over 10,000 abortions in Washington. At the program's peak, that figure crossed 14,000, with Planned Parenthood doing an increasing share of those. It's not known how many abortions PPWW was committing back in 1999, but the figure grew from about 6,000 to about 9,000 at one point during the program, due in part to their massive new reach.





8 comments:

Mary said...

What a great blog! Excellent research!Thanks for fighting the deadly monster, Planned Parenthood...

Mary @ heartheircries.blogspot.com

Anonymous said...

Well all this sort of "forensic research" you at Abortion in Washington do sure is revealing. Who'd have thought that the more contraceptives being used, the more unexpected, unwelcomed pregnancies there'd be?

Once these unwelcomed pregnancies are discovered, it's inevitable that some will pursue an abortion.

So if more contraception is associated with more unwelcomed pregnancies, and unwelcomed pregnancies are sometimes followed by abortions, then it's clear that funding contraception (at least in this particular Take Charge program) results in MORE abortions.

I don't know anybody who thinks more abortions is a good thing.

I also don't know anyone who thinks it's better to fund abortions than fund a lifeline for home-bound elderly or disabled people or vaccinations for pre-schoolers. Spending money in those cases would be a positive thing. Spending money on abortion is not something anyone feels good about.

The governor should rethink her intent to fund this counterproductive Take Charge program. It makes no sense once one actually stops to look at the FACTS. Or is she just another weak politician held hostage to a big-monied, big business special interest?

Anonymous said...

This is outrageous! The newspapers tout Ms. Gregoire as saddened that she has to slash government spending, yet she hands over millions of dollars to a company that wants nothing more than to snuff more money from the economy by destroying lives. That money would be better spent on education and programs that encourage our young to become better members of society than to go toward "reproductive heathcare" that ends up destroying women and children! Has she not seen the statistics that show an increase in behavioral problems, alcohol problems, drug abuse problems that are associated with abortion? What of the increase in breast cancer? She is only putting a band-aid over the problem. Its time to find REAL solutions, and those involve life-affirming action instead of hopeless deadends that Planned Parenthood and all their cronies advocate.

Anonymous said...

Well I'd have to say that y'all are just closed minded. I was a person on the Take Charge program and currently a paitent at Planned Parenthood. I have never had a unplanned pregnancy or a abortion. You fail to see that there are still a lot of people out there that are helped by this program and by Planned Parenthood.

Jonathan B said...

Dear Taking Charge:

I guess some people are raised to pay their own way, and if their lifestyle choices have certain costs associated with them, they go out and earn the money to pay for those, they don't think they have some right to saddle other taxpayers with that bill.

Also, elsewhere on the blog there are Planned Parenthood employees ranting about privacy this and privacy that. Forcing us taxpayers to pay to rejig your reproductive hormones so that you can indulge your sexual appetite at will hardly seems like it screams "this is my private life"!

Finally, even if one were to grant that you have helped us find the one person being benefited by this organization and program, that hardly begins to justify the continued existence of either. Al-Qaeda improves some people's lives. Mao built some nice roads in China. Stalin helped industrialize Russia. Adolf Hitler reportedly made unemployment almost disappear. Heck, someone somewhere has probably even gotten a job under the Obama regime.

What was your point again?

Anonymous said...

So then if it is not helping decrease abortions, then take it away? Then see what happens? Seems like the right decision...Lets see, no pap smears and breast checks, no birth control for low income, no abortion services. Who do you think will be paying for the unwanted pregnancies anyways. Naive thinking.

Shell said...

I'm enrolling in this program tomorrow morning, and I hope I get accepted.
This blog is nothing but slop. Take Charge (the program name) prevents hundreds, if not thousands, of pregnancies each year--not to mention it helps control other hormone related conditions such as endometriosis, adenomyosis, cystic fibrosis, dysmenorrhea, etc. Up until my 19th birthday a month ago I was taking birth control pills for the last three years. I have never been pregnant; the pill has always worked for me. I am sexually active and take the pill not only for dysmenorrhea but to prevent pregnancy. Thus, birth control, by preventing the release of an egg due to increased hormone levels, has helped me avoid tons of potential pregnancies. Pending approval of my application to Take Charge, I will receive not only STD testing to keep me healthy but I will also receive the Pill each month which I could not afford without help from the program. If my story doesn't clearly demonstrate how much the program helps, then you need some mathematical tutoring. I hope you do post this comment as I see they are moderated; I want people to understand that the program helps women take control of their lives, not only to prevent pregnancy but to help deal with painful conditions like those I listed above. I've never had an abortion at planned parenthood either; I received STD testing and treatment on one occasion, and now I will hopefully receive birth control from them. That's what I think people need to know. But you are right: Gregoire DID want to cut mental health funding, which I think is disgusting, myself having clinical depression and my long term boyfriend being schizophrenic. It's absolutely asinine, in my opinion. Thank you for covering that point in here--I feel like too often it is shoved under the rug. ~~Shell~~

Mary E. said...

Shell --
Your claim that Take Charge has prevented "prevents hundreds, if not thousands, of pregnancies each year--not to mention it helps control other hormone related conditions such as endometriosis, adenomyosis, cystic fibrosis, dysmenorrhea, etc." is not backed up by the data/research. Even Planned Parenthood has admitted to that.
How sad that you have VD at such a young age.
STD testing does not "keep you healthy." It's only a test to determine if you have some particular disease. Once you test positive for a particular VD it's too late. You are no longer healthy. Restoring your health after that can be difficult. Google "STD superbug".
You should also know that use of the pill lowers your resistence to HIV and possibly VD/STDs.
You also need to research the side-effects of the pill and the damage it does to women's health.
Your story doesn't demonstrate how TC helps. You've shown us how it hurts women. Why would PP help facilitate a lifestyle that leaves young, beautiful women like yourself vulnerable to disease and then pumps their body full of chemicals and steroids which further compromise their health? PP knows that OCs can cause breast cancer but won't tell women that. You already have a VD and you are ONLY 19!! You are also at risk for abortion. How could the PP lifestyle be helping you??!! You deserve better.
If you ever become pregnant please let us know.