Community health centers keep proving we don’t need Planned Parenthood

Yesterday, the Department of Health and Human Services announced that it had granted $125 million to 1,352 community health centers in the United States for “[e]xpanding access to comprehensive care, improving care quality and outcomes, increasing comprehensive care delivery in a cost-effective way, addressing health disparities, advancing the use of health information technology, and delivering patient-centered care.” HHS Deputy Secretary Eric Hargan stated in a press release:

Community health centers provide coordinated, comprehensive, and patient-centered care to millions of Americans…. They have a track record of delivering quality care at significantly lower cost, and are vital partners in our movement toward a health system that delivers quality, affordable, value-based health care for all Americans.

The press release also notes that “more than 27 million people (approximately 1 in 12 U.S. residents) relied on a HRSA-supported health center” for primary healthcare in 2017. Among those numbers were “one in three people living in poverty,” “one in five rural residents” and “more than 355,000 U.S. veterans.” And, says HHS, “nearly 1,400 health centers operate more than 11,000 service delivery sites nationwide.”

While Planned Parenthood repeatedly lies to the public, claiming that without their facilities receiving taxpayer funding, poor women would have nowhere to get healthcare, the truth is, community health centers (which do not provide abortion) vastly outnumber Planned Parenthood facilities. The numbers aren’t even close. According to a 2017 American Life League report, Planned Parenthood operates just 597 facilities in the U.S. (compared to 11,000 health center sites).

READ: Planned Parenthood lies again, says poor women can’t get health care elsewhere

As Live Action News’ Carole Novielli reported in 2017, “Planned Parenthood has lost more than half a million patients (600,000) since 2011, while taxpayer-funded health centers, as identified by the federal Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), saw a 2 million patient increase by 2015, providing care to 24,295,946 patients.” Now, that number is up to 27 million patients, while Planned Parenthood sees 2.4 million patients annually.

Bottom line: People need comprehensive primary care, and they can get it at more than 11,000 sites that do not mix killing with care — without ever having to step foot inside a Planned Parenthood.