As our nation’s largest abortion-committing organization, Planned Parenthood tirelessly claims that without its facilities, low-income women will be doomed and unable to obtain affordable health care services. Just the opposite is true: not only is defunding Planned Parenthood and reallocating said funds to Federally Qualified Health Centers more economically beneficial, but it will allow more low-income women and families to obtain truly comprehensive health care.
Do the math: low-income women are better off without Planned Parenthood.
It’s all in the numbers.
According to their latest annual report (from 2010), Planned Parenthood saw three million patients. They also operate nearly 800 facilities across the country while receiving $487,000,000 in taxpayer dollars.
Federally Qualified Health Centers provide a truly comprehensive range of health care services to low-income persons; they are not limited to reproductive services, like Planned Parenthood. In fact, these centers provide the same services that Planned Parenthood does – cancer screenings, various forms of birth control, well-woman exams, STD and pregnancy tests, etc. – but also provide services like pediatric care and dental care and immunizations, which Planned Parenthood does not. Further, FQHCs do not perform abortions.
According to their 2010 statistics, FQHCs serve 19,500,000 patients (a million of whom are homeless), operate in 8,100 service sites where they employ 131,000 staff members, and receive approximately two billion dollars annually (eleven billion over the next five years) in federal funding.
Now that we’ve looked at the numbers, let’s do a little bit of math.
In taxpayer dollars, Planned Parenthood receives:
$162 for every patient they see, or
$608,750 for every service site they operate.
In taxpayer dollars, FQHCs receive:
$102 for every patient they see, or
$246,913 for every service site they operate.
Therefore, compared to comprehensive, non-abortion-performing FQHCs, Planned Parenthood receives:
63% more taxpayer dollars per patient they see, or
246% more taxpayer dollars per service site they operate.
CLICK LIKE IF YOU’RE PRO-LIFE!
This is the pro-woman, pro-family case for reallocating Planned Parenthood’s federal funding: judging from the statistic above that FQHCs receive $102 per patient they care for, granting that $487,000,000 to FQHCs would allow them to provide services to another potential 4,774,509 low-income patients.
If granted that nearly half-billion dollars Planned Parenthood currently receives, not only would these FQHCs be able to cater to the three million patients who receive health care from Planned Parenthood now, but an additional 1,774,509 patients could receive affordable health care.
In short, if the abortion giant Planned Parenthood were defunded, and its funds reallocated to FQHCs, more people would have access to a wider range of services at clinics that do not perform abortions.
LifeNews.com Note: Jennie Stone writes for the Live Action blog and this column is reprinted with permission.
