Health Law Crimps Calif. Family-Planning Groups’ Budgets

California clinics providing birth-control services are finding their finances squeezed by the Affordable Care Act’s expansion of Medicaid, according to NPR.

Such facilities have long received much of their income from the state’s Family PACT program, which covers the cost of family-planning services for nearly 2 million uninsured Californians. Under the new federal health law, most of those patients will become eligible for Medicaid, dramatically shifting the revenue stream for Planned Parenthood and similar groups.

California’s Medicaid reimbursement rates are among the country’s lowest. Kathy Kneer, the president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Affiliates of California, said clinics “are looking at 2014 with a great deal of trepidation” and searching for ways to cut costs, including reducing time spent counseling clients, a service covered by Family PACT but not Medicaid.