New Jersey recently made some significant expansions to their funding of women’s health services with a bill that was recently signed into law. This increased access is incredibly important for tens of thousands of New Jersey women who rely on these services for all their family planning needs. Companies like InnovaCare Health understand just how important quality, affordable access to the health care services you need is, and that is why they strive to work hand-in-hand with cities, states, and private providers to help streamline and provide the best and most affordable services possible.
This new expansion, supported by healthcare technology and administrative providers like InnovaCare, was signed into law by the new Democratic governor, Phil Murphy, on February 21st of this year. It was the first bill that he signed into law as governor and it has received widespread support from both the community, as well as healthcare providers. This expansion in funding will allow more women to obtain access to affordable reproductive and women’s health care services across the state and will have a particularly positive impact on low income women living in the state.
InnovaCare is a time honored, technology-driven company that has a combined 120 years of experience in managed care and related healthcare experience. They use a combination of experience, skill, and technology to help healthcare providers provide more timely, quality, and efficient ways of providing administrative and technical solutions for the varied needs of the myriad of healthcare providers. The newly expanded funding in New Jersey, focused on women’s health services, will give providers the ability to obtain services like InnovaCare provides to leverage technology and efficiency for their patients.
The bill that Phil Murphy signed, NJ A2134, seeks to provide some $7.5 million dollars in funding to the New Jersey Department of Health. Every dollar of this money is to be earmarked for family planning services, including the funding of community and non-profit health care providers such as Planned Parenthood. This is big news as Planned Parenthood is one of the biggest reproductive healthcare providers for low income women, and they provide a range of services from cancer and STD screenings, as well as birth control and prenatal care.
As InnovaCare Health and other healthcare solutions providers understand, this recent expansion is a huge deal. Former governor, republican Chris Christie vetoed a spending bill every year during his 8 year tenure as it had within it funding allocated for family planning services such as Planned Parenthood. Since 2010, any funding for any type of family planning services has been removed from the state budget and any attempts to provide said funding was met with a prompt and swift veto. The new governor is also indicative of a tide change in the general nature of politics for the state.
The signing of this bill into law has received wide praise, from peripheral companies like InnovaCare, as well as big names in women’s health issues such as Cecile Richards, the president of Planned Parenthood. She noted how, during the 8 year tenure of Mr Christie, women had a much harder time getting access to quality, safe, and affordable reproductive healthcare services.
This lack in access had real effects on the women of New Jersey. Health-related statistics showed a marked rise in the number of cancer cases among women in New Jersey, particularly affecting minorities and women of color. This added funds provided for in this bill will expand the number of women who qualify for these important and even life saving services.
Before this increase in spending, only women who fell at the 100% poverty line, when it comes to natural figures for poverty, now, these services are being expanded to women who are at the 200% of the poverty range, which helps a huge number of women who previously earned too much to qualify for assistance but that didn’t make enough money to provide them for themselves, effectively barring them from care.
Healthcare providers across the state, as well as subsidiary companies like InnovaCare laud this recent occurrence and hope that it will start to create a tide change across the country, allowing more states to expand their care options, funding levels, and over all services for women across all demographics and income brackets. This will not only expand access of care to the women who need it most, but it will also help to reduce the overall statistics for cancer and other reproductive health issues that women without proper healthcare access must deal with. This was the first major piece of legislation for a new administration and it stands to dramatically improve the lives of women across the state. This new funding coincides with a big national push on the part of Planned Parenthood to seek to expand women’s healthcare offerings at the state level, as opposed to focusing so heavily on national funding mechanisms.
