Planned Parenthood’s office on Congress Street in Portland, Maine. (Maine Morning Star)
Representatives of Planned Parenthood of Northern New England called on leaders in Maine and other New England states to fund Planned Parenthood and other health care providers with state money during a press conference Thursday morning.
PPNNE has a projected financial deficit of approximately $8.6 million over the next three years, said interim CEO Nicole Clegg, adding, “and this does not include any impact from the potential outcome of the November elections.”
This past session, the Maine Legislature considered a bill to provide funding for family planning services, which would’ve included access to birth control, STI testing, and gynecological exams, among other health care. Despite receiving initial support in both chambers, the bill got caught in the funding process .
“We are often the first and the only health care provider a patient sees in a year, due to the patient being uninsured or underinsured or having a low income,” said Lisa Margulies, vice president of public affairs for PPNNE and Planned Parenthood Maine Action Fund. “We are an essential piece of the state safety net here in Maine, and despite that, we received no funding from the state of Maine.”
Vermont provides some funding to Planned Parenthood, but Maine and New Hampshire do not.
“We’ve had an increasing reliance on fundraised dollars to help cover our health care costs,” Clegg said. “That really shouldn’t be the way it’s operating, but that is what has happened for us.”
Clegg attributed the projected deficit to some systemic failures, specifically below market reimbursement rates for reproductive care and, even for those who have insurance, an increased demand for free and discounted care given high deductibles. Planned Parenthood’s centers in Maine and elsewhere in New England have also seen increased costs related to the overturn of Roe v. Wade in 2022, which ended the nationwide right to abortion.
Centers have seen increased demand from patients traveling from out of state, in particular states where abortion has since been banned, Clegg said, and insurance rates related to abortion have increased, too.
“The loss of Roe reverberated throughout the entire provision of this type of care,” Clegg said.
Another factor in the bleak financial outlook is the Medicaid unwind, which has resulted in people losing health insurance.
“When less people are insured, it drives up the cost for us,” said Kayla Montgomery, vice president of public affairs for Planned Parenthood New Hampshire Action Fund.
The Planned Parenthood representatives underscored that they believe the financial challenges they’re seeing are because of politics.
This has been evident in the New Hampshire Executive Council’s repeated rejections of funding Planned Parenthood and other health care providers that provide abortions with money the state’s Department of Health and Human Services had set aside for reproductive health care providers.
In the wake of the overturn of Roe , Maine passed a number of laws to protect and expand reproductive care in the state, including allowing abortions at any time during pregnancy if deemed medically necessary by a doctor as well as a shield law to protect the state’s health professionals who provide reproductive and gender-affirming care from being targeted by other states’ bans.
“But,” Margulies said, “these laws mean nothing if people can’t access care.”
This story was originally published by Maine Morning Star , which like the New Hampshire Bulletin is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity.
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