Political Quotes

“I thank the gentleman from California for sharing his experience as a medical doctor and as someone who stands with Planned Parenthood. Thank you for joining us. Congressman Ruiz raises an interesting point about looking at our system of health care. Part of the proposal from the Republicans is that this is easy, that we can simply take the money from Planned Parenthood and give it to community health centers, but there is simply not the capacity in the system to handle these extra patients. Currently, more than half of Medicaid providers are not offering appointments to new Medicaid patients, but two-thirds of the States report difficulty in ensuring enough providers, including OB/GYN care. Madam Speaker, this hurts low-income women especially hard because 60 percent of Planned Parenthood patients access care through Medicaid and/or Title X, and 35 percent of women view their OB/GYN as their main source of care. So what we are talking about here is not abortion, but women's health care, preventative measures that save lives. We know that over 90 percent of the services Planned Parenthood provides are preventative. We know that they serve underserved areas. We know that there isn't enough capacity to see these patients in other settings and that eliminating funding for Planned Parenthood would mean over 390,000 patients would no longer receive health care. If all of this sounds crazy to you, you are not alone.…”