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Alexis Nolan is director of clinical care at Planned Parenthood of Northern New England.
The work I and my colleagues around the state do — providing comprehensive, essential and life-saving sexual and reproductive health care to people — is often politicized in a way that diminishes the impact of what receiving this care means for patients.
The politicization of our care causes incredible strain not only for those of us who provide it but also for those who seek it. Following both elections of President Donald Trump, patients immediately contacted us, concerned about losing access to their health care. We saw an increase in patient requests for long-acting reversible contraceptives, which include the birth control implant and intrauterine devices (IUDs).
We do our best to allay those fears, but we also have to face reality. Policies included in HR 1 or the “Big Beautiful Bill,“prohibit providers like Planned Parenthood of Northern New England (PPNNE) from being reimbursed through federal dollars for non-abortion services provided to patients on Medicaid (MaineCare). Access to cancer screenings, testing and treatment for sexually transmitted infections, and yes, birth control, is at risk.
In fact, in some states, access to reproductive care has already suffered. In a recent report, some Planned Parenthood health centers note a decline in visits for contraceptives since HR 1 took effect.
In Maine, PPNNE has refused to pass this harm onto our patients. We’ve continued welcoming patients insured by Medicaid (MaineCare), even though we are not being reimbursed for the care we provide. We cannot do this forever. Without swift action at the state level, I worry about how much longer we can continue to ensure no one who comes to us for care is turned away.
We are fortunate that our health centers operate in a manner that allows us to see patients within days of a request for common gynecological concerns like pelvic pain, abnormal bleeding and vaginal infections. Wait lists and travel times for primary care and obstetrics and gynecological care are extremely long in the communities we serve. In conversations with our clinical staff, patients often wonder out loud what they would do if we couldn’t take care of them.
I want to be able to say that PPNNE will never turn anyone away for lack of ability to pay. The painful truth is that, right now, I cannot say this with certainty.
I am grateful for leaders in our state who have worked to protect the right to care and expand access to it. Their support for patient care, including through allocating one-time family planning funding last year, has been a lifeline.
Right now, we’re looking to those same leaders to safeguard patients’ ability to access care they have a right to under state law. Through a bill, LD 335, the Maine Legislature can take proactive action to ensure that should future attacks on patients’ ability to access life-saving health care come from the federal level, patients in Maine will still be able to access care that is legal here.
People across Maine deserve access to health care like preventative and essential gynecological care, cancer screenings, screening for sexually transmitted infections and birth control from our statewide network of family planning care providers. We need state law to reflect our state’s commitment to not only protecting the right to care but access to it. I urge our lawmakers to pass and fund LD 335.