Medicaid is the largest source of public funding for family planning services in the United States, financing contraceptive services for millions of low-income women. Medicaid’s Role in Family Planning, a new issue brief, reviews Medicaid’s part in financing and providing access to family planning services for low-income women.

Twelve percent of women of reproductive age rely on Medicaid for their care, ranging from 6% of women in Nevada and New Hampshire to 24% of women in Maine. Over the past decade and a half, 26 states have initiated special programs that extend family planning services to low-income individuals who are not otherwise eligible for Medicaid.

The issue brief by the Guttmacher Institute and the Kaiser Family Foundation provides an in-depth examination of:

• coverage through Medicaid for women of reproductive age at the national and state levels;
• the range of services covered as part of family planning;
• state-initiated family planning expansions and their impact in reducing unintended pregnancies and births, as well as abortions; and
• recent changes in Medicaid policy, particularly the federal Deficit Reduction Act of 2005, and their potential effects on the provision of family planning services.

The issue brief is available online here.