How does planned parenthood pay for abortions

No other federal program makes funds available to support clinic infrastructure needs specifically for family planning. In contrast, Medicaid reimburses for specific clinical services. The program budget, however, has not kept pace with medical price inflation over time. Clinics that provide family planning services have a mix of revenue sources, including grant funds from Title X and other programs, reimbursement for patients covered by Medicaid or private insurance, and some out of pocket payments from patients.

Over the past decade, the Title X program has experienced significant financial cutbacks due to federal budget reductions and freezes. In addition, some Congressional leaders have questioned the need to continue to fund the program, the types of services that the program can cover and the providers who qualify for funding.

In March , the Trump administration published a new regulation that alters the program significantly. In particular, the new rules block the availability of federal funds to family planning providers, such as Planned Parenthood, if they also offer abortion services with non-Title X funds. The regulation also prohibits Title X-funded providers from making referrals to abortion services for pregnant women seeking that care and requires providers that receive Title X support to refer all pregnant women to prenatal care even if a woman wants to terminate the pregnancy.

Currently, the new regulation is in effect, but it has been challenged by 23 states, major family planning organizations, and the American Medical Association in federal court, claiming the new rules violate the Constitution and federal law. As of October , 18 of 90 grantees that had received funding in April are no longer participating in the program because they are unwilling to comply with the new federal regulations that limit their ability to provide clients with abortion referrals and block them from participating if they also offer abortion services.

In addition, one quarter of the family planning approximately 1, clinics network no longer receive Title X funding to support family planning services to low-income women in the community and some states are no longer participating in the Title X program. The loss of Title X funding may force some clinics to close and others to reduce hours, services, and staff training.

Although it is not specifically defined in FQHC guidelines, voluntary family planning services can include preconception care, screening and treatment of STIs, and contraception. A survey of FQHCs found that virtually all reported they provided at least one method of contraception at one or more of their clinical sites. That suggests exceptions to the policy are not common. Scott Walker — that went to Planned Parenthood, which provides abortions. But the money never made it into the final budget, and even if it had, it would have generally been barred from paying for abortions.

More: Fact check: Year-old claim about Tony Evers, gun confiscation resurfaces. Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin reported just over 4, abortions for the fiscal year. Given that such a large fraction of health care organizations are non-profits, it is easily possible that one quarter to one half of abortion clinics likewise are structured as non-profits.

However, to be conservative, I've assumed that only one third of all abortions are performed by such providers, i.

While there's no way of knowing what the mark-up is on abortion services, Planned Parenthood's latest annual report shows net income over expenses of 8. A for-profit corporation in the services industry would face an average tax rate of But remember that donations to non-profits also receive a tax benefit. On average, taxpayers finance 14 cents of every dollar contributed to charity. The remaining amount constituted Assuming the same was true of abortions, this represents an additional 2.

If one third of all abortions are performed by non-profit organizations, these figures imply that federal and state taxpayers each finance 0. Title X services likewise cannot be used for abortions per se although critics note that these can be used for counseling and "if any pregnant woman requests an abortion referral, the affiliate must provide such a referral;" hence such funds indirect support the abortion "industry".

Some opposed to federal funding for Planned Parenthood, such as Michigan Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner, argue that these funds are "fungible. Pro-choice advocates argue that since Planned Parenthood bills and is paid for specific services--pregnancy tests, Pap smears, abortions etc. Title X funding, for example, can be used to provide discounted contraceptives, but not abortion. If funds for discounted contraceptives were eliminated, the price of contraceptives presumably would have to go up Planned Parenthood would not longer have taxpayer funds with which to offer the former subsidy , but the price of abortion services would remain unchanged.

The truth is more complicated than either of these accounts. First, from a revenue perspective, funds quite often are fungible. Donors may be enticed to donate based on marketing that highlights its very worthy services not realizing that their donations are used for abortions. One can argue that donors should be better informed, but there appears to be a whole cottage industry led by Planned Parenthood itself that seems determined to minimize its role in providing abortions.

Consider the agency's own Planned Parenthood at a Glance page whose only mention of abortion consists of " Three percent of all Planned Parenthood health services are abortion services. All organizations, Planned Parenthood included, face fixed and marginal costs.

Airlines that manage to cover their fixed costs by selling high cost tickets to first class passengers are then able to offer heavily discounted fares to their last passengers just to fill seats--i. In a similar fashion, if Planned Parenthood is able to use its federal funds to cover the vast majority of its fixed costs, it then can offer abortions at their marginal cost, meaning that every abortion offered is implicitly subsidized to some extent. In a typical physician practice, practice expenses i.

Some of these costs may be directly allocable to specific procedures, e. No clinic could honestly do this. There is, after all, a lengthy OMB circular that lays out the rules non-profit organizations are expected to follow.

Organizations generally are permitted to use a simplified allocation method, which is to allocate indirect costs in proportion to direct costs. Thus, if 1 abortion costs 30 times as much as a 1 pregnancy test, as one example, then a clinic doing just as many abortions as pregnancy tests would end up allocating 30 times as much of its overhead costs to the abortion component of its business than its pregnancy testing component.

But organizations also are permitted to use an alternative base if they feel it is justified. Consider this Planned Parenthood agency in Michigan, which according to this audit report "has fifteen clinics and allocates the clinical expenses based on the number of visits for each program" p.

This means that an abortion "visit" gets treated the same as a pregnancy testing visit, hence the abortion program at each clinic is going to get much less overhead cost allocated to it than were the simplified allocation method used. Other women have been forced to carry their pregnancies to term or to seek illegal abortions. Studies have shown that from 18 to 35 percent of Medicaid-eligible women who want abortions, but who live in states that do not provide funding for abortion, have been forced to carry their pregnancies to term.

Because the costs associated with childbirth, neonatal and pediatric care greatly exceed the costs of abortion, public funding for abortion neither costs the taxpayer money nor drains resources from other services. Our tax dollars fund many programs that individual people oppose. For example, those who oppose war on moral or religious grounds pay taxes that are applied to military programs.

The congressional bans on abortion funding impose a particular religious or moral viewpoint on those women who rely on government-funded health care. Providing funding for abortion does not encourage or compel women to have abortions, but denying funding compels many women to carry their pregnancies to term. Nondiscriminatory funding would simply place the profoundly personal decision about how to treat a pregnancy back where it belongs -- in the hands of the woman who must live with the consequences of that decision.

These women are eligible, however, to receive all other pregnancy-related services. See Hope v. Perales , N. See Alaska v. Planned Parenthood , 28 P. Health Care Cost Containment Sys. Rights v. Myers , P. Maher , A. Wright , No.

Clinic for Women, Inc. Sec'y of Admin.