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August 19, 2015 11:31 AM UTC

Despite Gardner's claim, people in Colorado would suffer if Planned Parenthood were defunded

  • 20 Comments
  • by: Jason Salzman

(Basically, Cory Gardner thinks you’re stupid – Promoted by Colorado Pols)

Sen. Cory Gardner (R).
Sen. Cory Gardner (R).

After he voted to defund Planned Parenthood, Sen. Cory Gardner hopped on the radio said, not to worry, no one in Colorado will suffer if the health organization loses federal funding.

“We voted to take the money from Planned Parenthood and distribute it to the community health clinics around the state of Colorado,” Gardner told KNUS 710-AM’s Dan Caplis Aug. 13, vowing that the investigation of Planned Parenthood in Congress will continue. “There are nine times more community health clinics than there are Planned Parenthood clinics, and so they provide more access to women and men across the state.” (Listen to Caplis belowAug. 13 and also on Kelley and Company here on Aug. 10.)

It’s true that there are many more community health centers than Planned Parenthood clinics in our state. But this doesn’t mean that throwing more money at the community health clinics would provide equal or greater access to healthcare than what’s available now.

First of all, studies have shown that the community health center (CHC) network and federally qualified health center (FQHCs) network don’t offer all types of birth control and reproductive health care. That’s why many large community health centers actually factually refer patients to Planned Parenthood. Planned Parenthood specializes in reproductive health care–while community health centers offer a wider range of services.

So it’s not surprising that even though Planned Parenthood operates just 10 percent of all publicly funded family clinics, 36 percent of patients seeking family-planning services turn to Planned Parenthood.

Poor people on Medicaid go disproportionately to Planned Parenthood for these services, and it’s unlikely that the safety net and the health care system, as currently configured, could absorb Planned Parenthood’s patients. This means that defunding Planned Parenthood would weaken our country’s already weak safety net.

Planned Parenthood Votes Colorado blogged this in response to Gardner’s radio remarks (and discussed the issue with The Denver Post’s Joey Bunch here):

In Colorado, Planned Parenthood serves over 80,000 people each year. Including helping 57,000 women get their birth control, 11,000 women get breast wellness exams, and 56,000 Coloradans get STD tests. These are services people need — usually immediately. And these services are being provided by PP most often to low-income and rural Coloradans. Three-quarters of Planned Parenthood’s patients are low-income, making less than $37,000 a year for a family of four. In Colorado, Planned Parenthood has 20 health centers, many of in rural communities, like Granby, Salida, La Junta and Alamosa. Women in all communities need reproductive health care, and Planned Parenthood provides it.

Furthermore, it is harder and harder for low-income people in this country to find a provider, even though they may now have coverage because of the Affordable Care Act. According to a report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office only 41 percent of OB/GYN’s in Medicaid managed care networks are even taking new clients. Without Planned Parenthood thousands of Colorado women, and millions around the country, would have no place to go when they need care.

Finally, you cannot write about the impacts of extracting Planned Parenthood from our communities without saying this: the debate about defunding Planned Parenthood is also about choice. Planned Parenthood is barred by law from using federal money for abortion, just as community health clinics are. But Planned Parenthood offers this option through other funding sources, while the community health clinics do not.

So, when an anti-choice politician like Gardner tells an anti-choice radio host like Caplis that our life in Colorado will be better off without federal funds for Planned Parenthood, you don’t have to dig too deep to find out there’s another side to the story.

Listen below to Sen. Cory Gardner on KNUS 710-AM’s Dan Caplis Show Aug. 13, 2015.

Comments

20 thoughts on “Despite Gardner’s claim, people in Colorado would suffer if Planned Parenthood were defunded

  1. CPols, the politest political blog around. Call him the liar he is, and do it in the headline. Or do we need to be polite to liars who hate our guts and hate government?

    1. Hey — I'm not ColoradoPols. CoPols seems to be rude when necessary and polite as well. I try not to call someone a liar unless I know he's lying, as in I can prove he knows he's saying something false. i don't blame you for calling Gardner a liar in this case, but i don't want to. But please don't call me polite, you mother fucking jerk. Joke. I appreciate your point, Zappatero, seriously.

  2. Senator Gardner's statements don't make sense. On the one hand he praises his vote  defunding Planned Parenthood because of the videos and in the next he asserts the investigation of PP will continue. He and his fellow Republicans have already voted to defund PP so why continue the investigation. He and his Republican colleagues have already made up their minds and concluded PP needs to be defunded for the same reasons an investigation was begun. This is another one of Mr. Gardner's clever but dishonest approaches to his constituents. The only reason he voted to defund PP is because of his pro-life stance. The videos are simply a convenient excuse to justify what he has supported for his entire career – any policy that will undermine a woman's right to choose. His statements on Mr. Caplis' program, once again, confirm the Denver Post's editorial last year endorsing him, in part, because he was not a threat to women and their right to choose was baseless.

  3. Planned Parenthood exists to provide abortions and make sexual immorality consequence free. There are many alternatives for the non abortion, non contraception, non STD services Planned Parenthood performs. Kudos to Sen. Gardner for voting to end their funding and give it to clinics who don't encourage the moral decay of our society.

    1. Thanks, Moderatus!   You just confirmed that the point of Cory Gardner's plan to defund Planned Parenthood and block-grant some funds to other community health providers is that it is DESIGNED to diminish support for certain women's health services.   Namely … contraception and abortion.   Things which the alternatives don't offer.

      Appreciate it, dude!   We all owe you thanks for cutting through all of Gardner's spin for us.    

      1. And yet more Americans identify as pro-life than ever before. The body body parts videos are forcing Americans to deal with this dark spot in our great civilization. I believe we are moving to a place in America where life will be respected again. We have the social safety nets to ensure that no woman is forced to raise an unwanted child. It's just going to take time to get there.

        1. What about respecting life BEYOND the womb, asshole? Or when that post-womb "life" is African American, Latino, Asian, Native American, poor and/or female? When are you ignorant, posturing, brain-dead hillbilly dumb asses going to begin caring about THAT "life"?

    2. Well, isn't that special. A visit from the Church Lady.

      Now, a word to those economic conservatives….Planned Parenthood is in business to prevent unwanted pregnancies by those who are unable or unwilling to fulfill the basic requirements of being a parent. Moddy's solution is to force that kid to carry that pregnancy to term (as the consequences of her immoral behavior) and have the rest of us taxpayers pay for the food, clothing, shelter and health care of teenaged mother and newborn.

      As for theose STDs which Moddy also sees as the consequences of immoral behavior, who does he think pays for the treatment costs for STD's like HIV? Planned Parenthood saves taxpayers money.

      The economic conservatives need to think about that the next time they climb into bed (metaphorically, of course) with the Bible thumpers.

        1. That's pretty much what you have to do every time you vote for a Republican, CHB. There are no Republican candidates here in Colorado for the House, Senate or Governor who will give you your conservative voodoo economics without anti-choice, anti-gay marriage and everything else that goes with the religious right agenda. Whoever gets the Republican nomination for president will stick with that same religious right agenda, too.

          In the 21st century GOP, every GOP legislative majority at every level sticks with that agenda.  So unless you find some third party voodoo economics/social progressive to vote for that's exactly the bed you'll be jumping into. And, of course, a vote for that sort of third party candidate would help us Dems, who are allegedly so bad at economic issues even though somehow the best economies always happen with Dems in charge. Sucks to be you?

          BTW. Had to leave page and come back to get reply to work. Getting red underlining of mistakes on and off. Lets see if I get an edit option when I hit post. If not… apologize for any glaring errors. 

            1. We are definitely seeing some compatibility issues with WordPress 4.3. We'll get them figured out, and we may disable automatic updates until we know these releases are stable.

        2. Sorry, CHB, but Frank's right. I don't know if your economics are voodoo or not, but your many qualities, such as fact based debate, tolerance and respect for others' opinions (among others), are not shared by today's Republican party. In fact, Zapaterro reflects more relevance and influence as well as a greater popular appeal in the Democratic party than you do in the Republican party. More's the pity. 

      1. Now, now, Frank. Moddy has no intention of forcing taxpayers to foot the bill for those children. He would send the little slut to a "crisis pregnancy center" where they would find a nice christian family to raise that poor little product of sin to be a nice christian child who would never do what his or her birth parents did-irresponsibly scattering bastards.

    3. So you think contraception is immoral and it's immoral to provide STD diagnosis and treatment, modster?  Were you frozen sometime in the 18th century before you came to ad showed up here? I'm thinking you must be such an effective antidote to so much as a thought of "immoral" behavior among the women and  girls in your vicinity the mass issue of chastity belts couldn't be more efficacious. Bet a celibacy pledge wouldn't put the slightest dent in your lifestyle, eh modster?

  4. Planned Parenthood produced their own video of Right to Life speakers saying some ….rather unexpected thingscheeky

     

    by the way, apparently I can edit.

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