Letter: ACA repeal will hurt PPSFL’s ability to serve people

This week, politicians in Congress introduced legislation that would repeal the Affordable Care Act and block millions of people from care at Planned Parenthood.
As a medical assistant at Planned Parenthood of the Southern Finger Lakes, I know first-hand that Planned Parenthood health centers are an irreplaceable resource, providing lifesaving health care to tens of thousands of people every year in the Finger Lakes region. Every day we see patients who need care and have nowhere else to turn – college students who need STI testing and treatment, teenagers looking to start birth control for the first time, male patients who don’t feel comfortable going to their primary care doctor for their sexual health care, transgender patients who come from miles away to receive hormone therapy, retired patients who come for cancer screenings, patients who have discovered they are pregnant and are seeking unbiased options counseling, and sexual assault victims who don’t know where else to go. These patients, along with all the members of our community who rely on Planned Parenthood, deserve better than targeted attacks on their health care.
The political threats to Planned Parenthood are very real and will directly harm our communities. The bill being considered would only serve to deny care at Planned Parenthood to Medicaid patients, a low-income population that already struggles to afford and access care. In New York State, over half of the patients at Planned Parenthood rely on Medicaid, and blocking them from care is cruel and defies common sense.
More than half of Planned Parenthood providers are in underserved areas. Rural communities like ours particularly struggle with a lack of accessible care. The idea that other providers could absorb Planned Parenthood’s patients has been resoundingly dismissed by experts. In fact, Georges Benjamin, the executive director of the American Public Health Association, has called the idea “ludicrous.” More than six in 10 women who obtained care at a publicly funded center providing contraceptive services in 2006–2010 considered Planned Parenthood their usual source of medical care. Many of our patients would not be receiving any health care at all if it wasn’t for our health centers.
As a medical assistant at Planned Parenthood, I want to make it very clear: Planned Parenthood saves lives and makes our communities better. We provide high-quality, nonjudgmental care to patients who don’t have access to other providers, or don’t feel comfortable going anywhere else. We are the chosen provider of our patients and we provide fearless advocacy and education to our communities, and politics should not stand in the way of that.
Our leaders in Congress have the responsibility to keep Americans safe and healthy. Without a doubt, cutting access for Planned Parenthood patients on Medicaid will put people’s lives at stake. Our elected leaders must reject this dangerous bill that would cut millions of patients off from their trusted, irreplaceable health care provider and life-saving care. I choose to work at Planned Parenthood because I want to fight for the people in my community, and I ask that our representatives in Congress choose to fight for them as well.

Emma Miller
Medical Associate, Planned Parenthood of the Southern Finger Lakes
Ithaca