Two recent votes in the Senate show that Pennsylvania's senators are not in touch with the needs of average
citizens. The proposed budget included cuts of $12 billion-$50 billion in Medicaid over five years. Medicaid provides health
care to some of our poorest citizens, and a cut of this size would be disastrous.
Fortunately, Sen. Specter voted for a bipartisan amendment which passed. The bad news is that neither Sens.
Specter nor Santorum supported the Reid-Clinton Prevention amendment, which would have added funding for family planning services
for low-income women, emergency contraception awareness campaigns, effective teen sexuality education.
Most of the [Medicaid] recipients in Pennsylvania are women, and without funding it is hard for them to
be able to afford up to $50 per month for birth control. The consequence is women having unintended pregnancies, and serious
worries about how they will afford to care for these children.
Tara M. Robinson, Philadelphia
