Low-Income Women's Access to Family Planning
Mississippi 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 women of childbearing age with incomes at or below 185 percent of the federal poverty level.
Beneficiaries of family-planning coverage available through the waiver are not required to pay premiums or co-payments for covered services. Covered services include: contraceptive counseling and information; contraceptive supplies, devices, implants and prescriptions; office visits, consultation, examination and diagnosis; laboratory examinations and tests; voluntary sterilization; HIV blood screenings/STI testing in conjunction with a family-planning encounter.
The waiver expired on Oct. 31, 2012, and is currently operating under a temporary extension.
Miss. Family Planning Demonstration Fact Sheet, Ctrs. for Medicare and Medicaid Servs., Feb. 16, 2006; NARAL Pro-Choice America Survey of State Medicaid Offices
