A slim Republican majority of the state legislator’s Joint Committee for the Review of Administrative Rules voted to suspend an emergency rule that created a welfare program to aid in family planning.
The Committee split 6 to 4 along party lines in the vote, which could eliminate the Medical Assistance Family Planning Demonstration Project. The Project is a five-year plan that allocates $29.3 million in federal funding to women who are not eligible for Medicaid or Badgercare health services.
The four dissenting votes ca me from Democrats who believed the six Republicans on the Committee were misinterpreting the public good accomplished by the Project.
“What it means for these women is that they won’t be able to avail themselves health care,” Sen. Judy Robson, D-Beloit, said. “The irony is that this is the same kind of health care that the legislators themselves have, but they are denying the same coverage to poor women.”
Pro-Life Wisconsin said in a release that it applauded Committee co-chairmen Rep. Glenn Grotham, R-West Bend, and Sen. Joe Leibham, R-Sheboygan, for suspending the Project. Representatives from the organization testified at the Committee hearing, offering evidence that broad contraceptive availability may work to increase underage pregnancy and abortion by encouraging promiscuity.
“Federal and state law prohibit parental notification of an underage child who applies for services under the Family Planning Demonstration Project,” said Matt Sande, director of legislation for Pro-Life Wisconsin, in the release. “Contraceptive drugs and devices pose serious health risks for women, including blood clots, cancer, strokes and heart attacks. What parent would not want to know that their minor child is ingesting such potentially life threatening drugs, not to mention why they are doing so?”
Robson said that although the project did offer contraceptives to minors, it was acting in the public interest by preventing poor women from receiving health care.
“A lot of women do come to the program for contraception, but without that assistance, there will be a lot more unwanted pregnancies and abortion, which is what they’re presumably trying to avoid,” Robson said.
The program began with financing from a federal waiver obtained by the Legislature while Republican Tommy Thompson was governor. With the waiver, the state receives 90 cents back from the government on every dollar it spends on the program.
Former Republican Assembly Majority Leader Scott Jensen, R-Waukesha, put language into Thompson’s budget proposal to start the program, and Robson offered the fact that Republicans were instrumental in starting the program as evidence the project was not created and defended by “a bunch of flaming liberals.” Robson said Republicans on the committee were far more conservative than the rest of the Republican legislators, who hold a majority in both houses.
“The idea behind it was that young women who end up pregnant are likely to end up on welfare,” Robson said. “It’s often a one-way ticket to poverty, and this waiver was designed to be used to take care of the uninsured.”
Robson said that for the committee to suspend the rule, it must follow it up with a bill presented to both houses of the Legislature and that committee Republicans plan to include an age limit for admittance to the project in order to prevent teens from acquiring contraception. Robson said she has talked to project administrators and that there might be enough money to continue the program without funding.
