Latina mother

In considering the potential impact of the repeal of the Affordable Care Act, efforts to defund Planned Parenthood, and other actions that may affect women’s health, most of the discussion has appropriately been on the impact on individual women. Indeed, Texas demonstrates the risks. In 2011, the state legislation cut family planning grants by 66%, and tried to redirect federal funds from Planned Parenthood to more general county-based programs. Although litigation initially prevented the switch, Texas eventually succeeded in replacing the federal funds with state money, and moving such funding away from family planning providers.

Many groups in the US face uncertainties about what the future holds for their health, given the health policy priorities of newly inaugurated President Donald Trump and the 115th Congress. Women, LGBTQ communities, refugees, undocumented communities, and the elderly are among those who may be most affected by the federal government’s health policy initiatives, including those impacting whether these groups will continue to have access to health care and if so, whether that care will be affordable and appropriate.