The Register's editorial

Among the most short-sighted measures approved this year by Iowa lawmakers and Gov. Terry Branstad was one giving up federal family planning money. Politicians wanted to prevent Planned Parenthood from being paid to provide health services, including counseling and birth control.

But states cannot collect Medicaid dollars and discriminate against a specific health provider, so our leaders ordered the Iowa Department of Human Services to forfeit all the Washington money for all providers and create a new state-funded family planning program that did not pay any provider also offering abortion.

Lawmakers went home for the summer. The governor moved to China. Iowans are left to deal with the fallout of a fringe idea.

Among the immediate repercussions:

State pays more

Iowa Republicans said they would replace the lost federal family planning money with state dollars. This was the epitome of fiscal irresponsibility, as Iowa does not have an extra $3 million. The money spent by the state could have funded programs that were cut, including those helping Iowans with autism and epilepsy.

That shows the GOP's anti-female agenda in Iowa is getting expensive. (Anti-female behavior in the Republican Senate caucus at the Statehouse also has proven costly. Jurors recently awarded $2.2 million in damages to a former caucus staffer who accused male supervisors of ignoring an environment that fostered rampant sexual harassment.)

Time wasted

As if the Council on Human Services doesn't have enough to do overseeing the state’s largest agency, it was clearly frustrated with Republicans’ family planning stunt. Members, all appointed by Branstad, took the rare action of voting to reject rules to implement a new program. They cited concerns about providers losing funding. After a state attorney explained to the council it could not prevent the law from going into effect, members reluctantly approved the rules.

Meanwhile, the drastically understaffed DHS had no choice but to end an established program that successfully served 12,000 Iowans, then create a new one, notify providers who may participate and report to lawmakers on the mess.

Access to care lost ...

Planned Parenthood specializes in preventing pregnancies. After losing access to federal family planning dollars, the organization announced the closure of clinics in Bettendorf, Burlington, Keokuk and Sioux City. About half the patients visiting those clinics sought birth control. Many were teens.

... and may not be regained

Lawmakers who fixated on “defunding” Planned Parenthood repeatedly insisted that plenty of other providers were available to fill the void if clinics closed. Unable to identify the providers, they unloaded the task on DHS.

The agency’s recently published list of entities eligible to receive payments from the new family planning program is not accurate. It includes Catholic-affiliated clinics that limit birth control options and providers who work more than 100 miles from the counties in which they were listed. It includes hospitals that state administrators said would be barred from the new family planning program.

The Republicans’ anti-abortion agenda has gone too far. Their quest to satisfy a few extremists is costing Iowans money, time and access to health care.