MADISON, Wis (WSAU-Wheeler News) Women’s health advocates say two state bills to cut federal funding to Planned Parenthood would leave many without cancer screenings and contraceptives.
The Assembly Health Committee spent seven hours yesterday hearing testimony on two measures in which Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin would lose $7.5-million a year. De Pere Republican Andre Jacque says the group now has a monopoly on the state’s share of Title-Ten money for health services.
The other bill limits the group’s Medicaid reimbursements for drugs. Julaine Appling of Wisconsin Family Action says the federal funds frees up other money for Planned Parenthood to perform abortions — and that’s not what the funding is meant to do. Milwaukee Assembly Democrat Jo Casta Zamarippa says the state does not have an alternative plan to make sure that low-income women and men get the health services they need. The bill gives the Wisconsin Well-Woman Program and other health agencies the first crack at the federal dollars. Critics say the program only helps women 45-to-64 — and younger women and men would be left in the lurch.
