Family planning, tobacco education slated for cuts
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POLSON — Montanans know the state legislature is carving money out of the budget, but many don’t realize just how those cuts will impact them locally. Lake County Family Planning stands to be cut entirely. Currently LCFP offers the only sliding scale fees in Lake County for contraception, breast and cervical screenings, pregnancy tests, counseling, referrals and HIV testing. These services will no longer be available at LCFP since Title X, the federal grant program that funds the clinic, has been removed from the state of Montana’s budget. Also to be axed is $490,000 in state general fund support per year for contraceptives for low-income women and $125,00 per year for laboratory services.
The budget bill, HB 2, has not passed. It needs to make it through the House of Representatives before it comes before the Governor Brian Schweitzer, who has promised to veto it.
The $2.3 million in Title X funds is not state money, according to Lake County Director of Health Services Emily Colomeda. It’s federal funding, which the state of Montana accepts and directs the county health departments how to use. None of the money is used for abortions or abortion-related services.
If the money isn’t used in Montana, it will go back to the Federal government and be redisbursed. Montana is the only state in the nation not to accept these dollars, Colomeda noted.
Staff members are concerned that a lack of low-cost contraceptives may result in a rise in teen pregnancy. They also worry that their clients can’t afford STD or wellness screenings if LCFP shuts its doors.
“Family-planning clinics are where many low-income women get their primary health care,” director of Department of Public Health and Human Services Anna Whiting Sorrell said. ”The proposed elimination of all Title X funding from the state will leave low-income women at risk for unplanned pregnancies and will increase the number of low-income women and men who do not receive health care.”
She added that over 120 Montanans have jobs in Title X Family Planning clinics located in state and county health departments, community health centers and private non-profit agencies throughout the state. If Title X funding is eliminated, not only will fewer Montanans receive family planning services, but clinics will close and some clinic staff will lose their jobs.
According to Lake County Tobacco Education coordinator Diana Schwab, another program scheduled for the chopping block is the Montana Tobacco Use Prevention Program. MTUPP will lose approximately 80 percent of its funding. The money for this program comes from tobacco master settlement funds. Impacts will include the loss of the Tobacco Use Quit Line, reACT youth prevention initiative and enforcement of the Clean Indoor Air law, a task MTUPP also handles.
For smokers who want to stop using tobacco, “Quit Line is our only resource for stopping smoking and chewing,” Schwab said.
Overall, MTUPP literature said smoking costs Montana more than $277 million in excess medical costs and $305 million in lost productivity every year. The cost per year to Medicaid alone is $67 million.
Tobacco services and family planning services often overlap. For instance a young expectant mother may be referred to MTUPP if she smokes and then directed to the food bank if she recently lost her job. Staff members also refer patients to mental health services, foodstamps and other services.
“These families are our families,” Public Health Nurse Angie Vance said.
Public health nurse Sheri Clark agreed, asking what other health care professional spends half an hour talking to a teen about birth control.
But family or not, if HB 2 passes in its current form, “The true impact here locally is going to be huge,” public health nurse Jami Lynch explained, adding it will be a similar situation in lots of rural counties.
