Ticker symbol SCSS. Maybe some puts are in order.
Thu, Mar 1 2012
States slash birth control subsidies as federal debate rages
March 2 (Reuters) - Even as a national debate rages over contraception insurance, tens of thousands of low-income women and teenagers across the United States have lost access to subsidized birth control as states slash and restructure family planning funds.
Montana and New Jersey have eliminated altogether their state family planning programs. New Hampshire cut its funding by 57 percent and five other states made more modest program trims.
But the biggest impact, by far, has been in Texas.
State lawmakers last fall cut family-planning funds by two-thirds, or nearly $74 million over two years. Within months, half the state-supported family planning clinics in Texas had closed.
The state network, which once provided 220,000 women a year free and low-cost birth control
At the People’s Community Clinic in Austin, the cuts mean that many low-income patients, except the very poorest, are now charged for contraception that used to be free: $5 for a dozen condoms; $10 for a month of birth control pills; $225 for an IUD.
“I have no clue what I’m going to do,” said Rhetta Pope, 22, of Austin. A stay-at-home mother of two, she lives off disability payments of less than $1,500 a month.
Pope said after paying basic living expenses, she has so little left she scrimps on electricity by keeping the lights off and takes her laundry to an aunt’s house. She can’t imagine how she would pay for birth control.
“I guess I’m going to have to stop using it because I don’t have the money,” Pope said. “I’m pretty shook up. I really am.”
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/03/02/usa-contraception-subsidies-idUSL2E8E21C920120302