Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler, R-Camas, voted against the Affordable Health Care Act bill last month, a vote I heartily applaud. However, her message on health care is very confusing to me.
In 2011, she voted to eliminate Planned Parenthood, a provider for thousands of her constituents in District 3 this fiscal year. Defunding Planned Parenthood specifically blocks patients covered by Medicaid from accessing birth control, cancer screenings, and other reproductive health care, as well as other general preventative care, for example, screening for cholesterol, diabetes, high blood pressure, thyroid, anemia.
On the one hand, she argues that The Vancouver Clinic and other doctors’ offices have had to reduce the number of Medicaid patients they see because of their bottom line concerns; she says “The Medicaid safety net … is being stretched to the point of breaking,” using that to defend her previous votes in the House to eliminate the ACA. However, her vote to defund Planned Parenthood assures that her constituents have fewer providers, blocking their access to health care.
She should vote to support her constituents’ access to all health providers, especially those who serve Medicaid recipients.
