Low-Income Women's Access to Family Planning

South Carolina provides increased access to reproductive health care services through a Section 1115 family planning waiver.  The waiver allows the state to cover family planning services for all women with incomes at or below 185% of the federal poverty level who are not otherwise eligible for state health care programs.  

Beneficiaries of family planning coverage available through the waiver are not required to pay premiums or co-payments for covered services.  Covered services include: family planning initial or annual examinations, counseling, instruction and education and supply visits; FDA-approved and Medicaid-covered birth control including intrauterine devices, diaphragms, condoms, vaginal spermicides, sterilizations, Norplant, Depo-Provera injections, and all prescription and over the counter products; pelvic exams, pap smear and necessary laboratory work; laboratory and radiology procedures associated with a family planning encounter; family planning services for adolescents.  

The waiver will expire on Dec. 31, 2010.  

S.C. Family Planning Demonstration Fact Sheet, Ctrs. for Medicare and Medicaid Servs.; S.C. Dept. of Health and Human Servs., Request to Renew the Family Planning Waiver, Nov. 2005 at http://www.cms.hhs.gov/MedicaidStWaivProgDemoPGI/MWDL/itemdetail.asp?filterType=none&filterByDID=-99&sortByDID=2&sortOrder=ascending&itemID=CMS1183743&intNumPerPage=2000 (last visited Oct. 31, 2008);  NARAL Pro-Choice America Survey of State Medicaid Offices