From Planned Parenthood Advocates of Virginia:
RICHMOND, VA — New Public Policy Polling in five Virginia House of Delegates districts shows broad support for proposals to close the coverage gap for 400,000 Virginians through Medicaid expansion.
The polling found double-digit margins of support for closing the coverage gap and majority support for the measure in districts where Medicaid impacts a high percentage of the population. Additionally, Virginia voters strongly support their elected representatives working toward a budget compromise that includes accepting federal funds to close the coverage gap and advance health care for hundreds of thousands of hardworking Virginians.
This polling follows a proposed House budget that attempted to block funding for Planned Parenthood’s nonprofit centers and a series of sexist comments from GOP leadership.
Statement from Cianti Stewart-Reid, executive director, Planned Parenthood Advocates of Virginia:
“The voters of Virginia couldn’t be more clear. In every district polled, the number of Virginians supporting expanding Medicaid to improve access to healthcare for hardworking people in our state far outweighed the number of those who opposed it. “Virginians are tired of politicians in Richmond playing politics with our health — that’s why those voters also showed strong support for a budget compromise.
“As the leading advocate for Planned Parenthood health centers in Virginia, we see firsthand the need for affordable and high quality lifesaving preventive health care, like cervical cancer screenings, breast health exams and birth control. It’s time for Virginia to expand Medicaid and accept federal dollars, which are already set aside, so that hundreds of thousands more Virginians can afford the quality health care when they need, without facing devastating medical bills.”
Background
More than 24,000 women and men across Virginia come to Planned Parenthood health centers every year – not to make a political statement, but to get high-quality, affordable health care.
- Planned Parenthood’s seven health centers in Virginia see 17,793 patients for birth control information and services, conduct more than 7,500 breast and cervical cancer screenings.
- One in five women in the U.S. has visited a Planned Parenthood health center at least once in her life.
- More than 90 percent of the services Planned Parenthood health centers provide are preventive (cancer screenings, STD tests, birth control, etc.).
Virginia women and families need — and support — more access to health care, not less.
- In all five districts recently polled by Public Policy Polling, voters supported closing the coverage gap by double-digit margins.
- More than half of all pregnancies in Virginia are unintended and in 2008, there were 375,500 women in need of affordable contraceptive services and supplies.
- Rural women — specifically in the Alleghany, Rappahannock, and Southern Virginia market regions, have seen a huge increase in the distance they must travel to receive OB-GYN care due to closures.
- According to ACOG, in 2011, 39 percent of Virginia’s counties did not have any OB‐GYNs.
- In 2010-2011, 18 percent of women aged 15-44 in Virginia were uninsured.
- Virginia ranks in the worst category for rates of breast cancer deaths among both African American and white women.
According to the Shriver Report, released last month by Maria Shriver and the Center for American Progress, one-third of all American women are living at “the brink of poverty,” meaning that they earn less than $47,000 per year for a family of four. “Forty-two million women, and the 28 million children who depend on them, are living one single incident—a doctor’s bill, a late paycheck, or a broken-down car—away from economic ruin,” the report reveals
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