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Sen. Teresa Pierce, D-Falmouth, is the chair of the Legislature’s Joint Choose Committee on Housing and a member of the Schooling and Cultural Affairs Committee.
Maine must step up for its household planning clinics
The Maine household planning community is a far-reaching constellation of facilities that present high-quality and complete sexual and reproductive well being care companies to tens of 1000’s of Mainers every year. In 2022, over 35,000 Mainers acquired therapy from a household planning heart.
What’s extra, these facilities present care far past what’s historically thought of to be a part of “household planning” companies. The 61 websites throughout all corners of Maine provide really life-saving care, from most cancers screenings and referrals for therapy, to STI testing and therapy, to being pregnant screening and counseling, in addition to important prenatal care. Household planning facilities assist make wholesome households.
Regardless of their vital position, household planning suppliers are hamstrung, yr after yr, by unstable funding. This wants to vary.
The position that household planning facilities play in our communities can’t be understated.
Past the plain reproductive-related care supplied, household planning facilities are sometimes the first supply of well being care for a lot of Mainers. Reproductive well being care suppliers are on the entrance traces of Maine’s well being care system. In some circumstances, household planning visits are the one time a affected person may see a physician for the complete yr. Which means that suppliers not solely handle sufferers’ reproductive well being care considerations, but in addition join them with different well being care companies, psychological and behavioral well being companies, and even social companies.
That is the core of what drove me to sponsor LD 1478, “An Act to Enhance Girls’s Well being and Financial Safety by Funding Household Planning Companies.” Established greater than 50 years in the past partly by Sherry Huber, a longtime Republican legislator, Maine’s household planning community depends on a mixture of state and federal funding. On the federal facet, Title X funds are tangled in a political tug-of-war. In the meantime, on the state stage, household planning funding has been stagnant for practically a decade.
In consequence, funding has not been reflective of inflation, the elevated price of delivering patient-centered care, or the elevated want for companies. My invoice would supply Maine Household Planning with $3,390,000 in annual state funding, by the 2026-2027 fiscal yr. This key funding would guarantee household planning facilities and their devoted suppliers can proceed to assist the oldsters in Maine who want care probably the most.
Within the wake of the Supreme Courtroom resolution to overturn Roe v. Wade, in addition to the continued political struggles in Washington, D.C., this stagnant state funding is nowhere close to sufficient. In Augusta, my fellow lawmakers and Gov. Janet Mills are doing all we will to guard and broaden Mainers’ entry to high quality, inexpensive reproductive well being care. Growing monetary assist for household planning facilities is another method we will present our dedication to reproductive entry for Mainers — particularly our neighbors on restricted incomes or these in additional rural communities.
The funding in LD 1478 would allow well being facilities to rent extra employees, replace infrastructure and expertise, and discover modern partnerships to satisfy underserved folks the place they’re at. It could imply conserving rural clinics — like Maine Household Planning websites in Fort Kent, Houlton, Rumford, Calais, and Dexter — open greater than sooner or later every week, which might be an enormous boon to sufferers who generally need to drive lengthy distances simply to get the well being care they want. Maine Household Planning facilities are a significant a part of our states’ well being care community. I’m devoted to advocating for them, their sufferers, and the funding they should present high quality, inexpensive care throughout the state.
