Indiana Shut Down Its Rural Planned Parenthood Clinics And Got An HIV Outbreak

originally posted by: macman
a reply to: Krazysh0t

Soooo, because Nanny Govt wasn't there to hold the hands of people in this area, by dolling out free condoms and needles the people in that area are now dealing with the affect of their actions...


I don't see a problem here.

Ya know, some people aren't meant to do anything in life except suckle from whatever free crap they can get their hands on. When the tit runs dry, I guess they don't survive.

And who do you think is going to pick up the tab when people get sick? I don't think their private insurance plans are going to kick in.

a reply to: macman

Yes, so now these same people will go on and become a bigger drain on our health care services since the medication to treat HIV is expensive.

The fact that you look at this situation as the government handing out free stuff to a bunch of hangers on is appalling. Have you ever SEEN someone taken down by heroin addiction? Because I have. It is a VERY tough addiction to break and we need better addiction handling services than we currently have, not to just slash the budgets on them because conservatives think they give out free stuff (in this case, the budget wasn't even slashed because of HIV, it was slashed for abortion reasons).

When someone gets HIV they become very expensive to our system

When someone serves a year in jail they become very expensive.

Cutting planned parenthood under the guise of fiscal conservatism is laughable.
These closings and defundings are all about abortion, and put communities at risk

Abortions are 3% of Planned Parenthood's services, they mostly do family planning(birth control) and general health services.

originally posted by: Krazysh0t
a reply to: NavyDoc

You are trying to simplify PP's involvement in this process into one particular thing. PP provides more than just HIV testing to help drug users.

You mean like "education" that is done in every public school and health clinic other than PP? Ditto condoms? PP is the only source of education and condoms? Really?

As the Huffpo piece was an obvious push for PP funding, I did some research.

Reuter's does not make the connection Huffpo does:

The initial cases were diagnosed after people injected themselves with the powerful painkiller Opana, which contains oxymorphone. Officials said people also have become infected after injecting other drugs, such as methamphetamine.

Pence, a Republican, said he does not think needle exchanges are a good anti-drug policy. However, he said it is under consideration for Scott County as a way of preventing the spread of HIV.

Indiana will bring in a mobile command center and make available additional state resources to help Scott County. In addition, CDC officials have been in the community since Monday to help with follow-up contacts with those diagnosed.

Officials urged those with HIV and battling drug abuse to take advantage of the resources available to treat their conditions.

Scott County officials say they have been fighting narcotics, and in particular prescription drug use, for several years, and the HIV outbreak has raised the level of concern.

"That's when we started calling in the cavalry, like the state folks who’ve come in today to give us some help," Scott County Sheriff Dan McClain said.

www.reuters.com... dUSKBN0ML2QU20150325

ABC news:

Every single confirmed case has been related to intravenous drug use of the opioid painkiller Opana, said Pence.

It's believed to be the worst HIV outbreak in the state history, said Brittany Combs, public health nurse at Scott County Health Department.

(Break)

A public awareness campaign to alert residents about the increase in HIV cases has started in the region. Pence emphasized that testing and treatment for HIV would be covered under the Indiana Medicare plan and asked anyone who thinks they were exposed to the virus to see a doctor or go to a clinic.

abcnews.go.com... tbreak-state-history/story?id=29921662

So, the increase in HIV is done to the increase in injecting prescription opiates and the article clearly states that the TESTING and TREATMENT is already covered under Indiana's Medicaid program, so it is false to say that the cause of the disease increase was due to a cut of funding to planned parenthood and the ONLY person making that claim is the planned parenthood lobbyist who wants more money.

a reply to: JohnnyCanuck

The tax payer should not be paying a single dime for these people.

How about we bus them up to Canada? I mean, you guys have "free" health care. Why not put your money..err I mean free health care where your compassion is and take care of these people.

a reply to: Krazysh0t

I have seen woman hide needles and razors in their privates to avoid detection while being booked into jail.

I have seen the aftermath of what methheads and heroin junkies do to people that don't just give up their wallets.

I have seen what happens to areas infested with these people.

I have arrested many of them.

So yeah, I have seen it.

And the funny thing is....NOT A SINGLE ONE OF THEM WERE FORCED INTO DOING DRUGS.

I still like the idea of busing them up to Canada. Canadians have such a wonderful system of medicine and life, I am sure they will do much better up there.


A persons choice to do drugs and/or have sex is not my financial obligation when things go south for them.

a reply to: HighFive

Our "system" was not designed, nor was their ANY intent on the taxpayer taking care of people in this manner.

I LOVE this idea that the TAX payer is held hostage by this idea that if they don't payoff people in society with free this and free that, it will only invite an increase in crime and angry mobs.

And people champion this moronic notion that appeasing others that use drugs and have sex with the free stuff, will somehow make life all good. They get their free goodies, and the upper class don't have to deal with them on a daily basis.

Just throw money at the problem....well, just throw billions of tax dollars at a problem...that will make it alllll better.

originally posted by: NavyDoc

originally posted by: Krazysh0t
You mean like "education" that is done in every public school and health clinic other than PP? Ditto condoms? PP is the only source of education and condoms? Really?

As the Huffpo piece was an obvious push for PP funding, I did some research.

Oh please. You and I both know that sex education is severely lacking in public schools across the country. This is in large part due to conservative Christians thinking that the only acceptable sex education in school is abstinence or bust.

Reuter's does not make the connection Huffpo does:

www.reuters.com... dUSKBN0ML2QU20150325

ABC news:

abcnews.go.com... tbreak-state-history/story?id=29921662

More like those two news sources decided not to report that connection. Clearly it is an important connection regardless of your political bias. If you ask me, they either willingly left that connection out or didn't know about it.

Here is an article that blames it on a lack of preventative health care services. It doesn't come out and say that Planned Parenthood was missing from the area, but PP is one of those services that provides help. The article also makes a few other points that I'd like to make you aware of.

How an HIV outbreak hit rural Indiana -- and why we should be paying attention

Last week, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence declared the outbreak a public health emergency, the worst in state history, authorizing a short-term needle exchange program. The announcement came as a surprise: Rates of new HIV transmission have been declining in Indiana for years, from 463 reported in 2002 to 205 in 2012.

2012? Hmmm... That year is familiar... Oh yea, it is the year after the PP clinic (again the only preventative option in the area for drug users) was shutdown.

Cooke knew drug use and infectious disease was a deadly combination. Without preventative resources, an outbreak could be triggered by one person with HIV sharing a needle.

This article makes a great case for preventative places like PP being a good thing.

So, the increase in HIV is done to the increase in injecting prescription opiates and the article clearly states that the TESTING and TREATMENT is already covered under Indiana's Medicaid program, so it is false to say that the cause of the disease increase was due to a cut of funding to planned parenthood and the ONLY person making that claim is the planned parenthood lobbyist who wants more money.

Only because you don't want to see it. There is more than enough evidence to lay the blame of this outbreak on the closing of the PP clinic.

originally posted by: tothetenthpower
a reply to: Krazysh0t
Man, American Health Care is messed up.

Seriously, talk about conservatives shooting themselves in the foot.

No subsidized medicine, no universal health care, the extremist religious conservatives are having good programs (like the one the OP's based on) that help the community shut down. Yet the Federal Government still ends up spending more on social healthcare than countries like Canada or the UK that have all these things. Like WTF going on there, lol.

Public Health expenditure

Obviously, with these hardcore conservatives pushing there illogical wisdom upon the American people and not allowing any 'official' universal health programs, government spending becomes inefficient and erratic.

originally posted by: macman
a reply to: Krazysh0t

I have seen woman hide needles and razors in their privates to avoid detection while being booked into jail.

I have seen the aftermath of what methheads and heroin junkies do to people that don't just give up their wallets.

I have seen what happens to areas infested with these people.

I have arrested many of them.

And THERE'S your problem. These people need help, not to spend time in a jail cell.

So yeah, I have seen it.

And the funny thing is....NOT A SINGLE ONE OF THEM WERE FORCED INTO DOING DRUGS.

I still like the idea of busing them up to Canada. Canadians have such a wonderful system of medicine and life, I am sure they will do much better up there.


A persons choice to do drugs and/or have sex is not my financial obligation when things go south for them.

It's funny how conservatives will argue tooth and nail against putting out tax money to help people like this on the front end, yet fail to see how not doing that raises the costs on the back end WAY higher than they would have been if we had treated the problem at the source.

a reply to: Krazysh0t

If you want to be honest about this whole thing, it boils down to simply this, if using your theory.

HIV rates went up as Handouts went down.
And to when you boil it down even further to a yummy reduction, it amounts to laziness. People are too lazy to take care of themselves and look for others to provide free crap and tell them what to do.

Heck, planned parenthood wasn't even at the epicenter of the issue:

The epidemic's true epicenter is the town of Austin, in northwestern Scott County, said Dr. William Cooke, medical director at Foundations Family Medicine. He opened the facility in Austin about 10 years and, since then, he's watched opiate abuse take a far deeper hold.

Used needles litter roadsides, ditches and yards, said Cooke, who has been publicly voicing his concerns about a brewing HIV outbreak. On Wednesday, Cooke also lobbied Indiana lawmakers to launch a clean-needle program — a strategy that, in his vision, would offer safe fresh needles and safe places to dispose of dirty needles while also connecting participating residents to addiction therapists.

"We've seen an increase in overdoses. We've identified that most of our IV drug users are hepatitis-C positive. We knew it was a only matter of time until HIV set in," Cooke said. "We've been asking for help for a long time. We identified long ago there was an undercurrent here that was very unhealthy."

Poverty is driving the mass opiate-addiction rate — and, now, the HIV epidemic, Cooke said. He met with the governor Wednesday to pitch his ideas on how to best infuse extra state dollars into Scott County to help. In addition to his clean-needle idea, Cooke sees a dire need for infectious-disease experts, addiction counselors, cardiologists and pulmonary doctors in the area.

The CDC team also visited Cooke's clinic as well.

"We need help. But that costs money. My clinic serves the poorest people in Indiana, potentially the poorest in the country," Cooke said. "We do a sliding scale here. If they can, they may pay us 10 dollars for care.

NBC news


No mention of a PP clinic in Austin and there has been an independent clinic that does charity care there for ten years and it is still there. So...a clinic already there that does charity care, care and testing has always been covered by Medicaid, and the rise in HIV directly related to the rise in injecting opiates.

Seems to me that, like most leftist organizations, planned parenthood didn't want a good crisis to go to waste and tried in a most disingenuous fashion to use this issue to demand an increase in money to themselves from the taxpayer.

a reply to: Krazysh0t

WOE there cowboy. I never said jail drug users. If people want to smoke drain cleaner, that is their problem.

If people want to inject heroin or snort some rails of meth, that is all them.

When they, regardless of addiction, break the law and steal, injure and so on then jail time is warranted.

As for Helping these people? They make the choice to use drugs and have sex. THEY need to pay for their actions.

a reply to: macman

Yeah these people are lazy... They aren't being controlled by their chemical addictions to practice these unsafe hobbies at all... You need to update your thinking on how addiction works. It's thinking like yours that adds to our growing drug addiction epidemic. Instead of helping these people, you insult them and kick them to the curb for their failings.

originally posted by: Krazysh0t

originally posted by: NavyDoc

originally posted by: Krazysh0t
You mean like "education" that is done in every public school and health clinic other than PP? Ditto condoms? PP is the only source of education and condoms? Really?

As the Huffpo piece was an obvious push for PP funding, I did some research.

Oh please. You and I both know that sex education is severely lacking in public schools across the country. This is in large part due to conservative Christians thinking that the only acceptable sex education in school is abstinence or bust.

Reuter's does not make the connection Huffpo does:

www.reuters.com... dUSKBN0ML2QU20150325

ABC news:

abcnews.go.com... tbreak-state-history/story?id=29921662

More like those two news sources decided not to report that connection. Clearly it is an important connection regardless of your political bias. If you ask me, they either willingly left that connection out or didn't know about it.

Here is an article that blames it on a lack of preventative health care services. It doesn't come out and say that Planned Parenthood was missing from the area, but PP is one of those services that provides help. The article also makes a few other points that I'd like to make you aware of.

How an HIV outbreak hit rural Indiana -- and why we should be paying attention

Last week, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence declared the outbreak a public health emergency, the worst in state history, authorizing a short-term needle exchange program. The announcement came as a surprise: Rates of new HIV transmission have been declining in Indiana for years, from 463 reported in 2002 to 205 in 2012.

2012? Hmmm... That year is familiar... Oh yea, it is the year after the PP clinic (again the only preventative option in the area for drug users) was shutdown.

Cooke knew drug use and infectious disease was a deadly combination. Without preventative resources, an outbreak could be triggered by one person with HIV sharing a needle.

This article makes a great case for preventative places like PP being a good thing.

So, the increase in HIV is done to the increase in injecting prescription opiates and the article clearly states that the TESTING and TREATMENT is already covered under Indiana's Medicaid program, so it is false to say that the cause of the disease increase was due to a cut of funding to planned parenthood and the ONLY person making that claim is the planned parenthood lobbyist who wants more money.

Only because you don't want to see it. There is more than enough evidence to lay the blame of this outbreak on the closing of the PP clinic.

It doesn't make the planed parenthood was the connection because planned parenthood wasn't even in Austin. The article quite clearly says that Dr. Cooke's clinic was the ONLY clinic there for years. If PP was not even there, how can anybody with any intellect say that cutting their funding was the cause?

ars ago, William Cooke sensed a crisis building. The only doctor in rural Austin, Indiana, noticed that intravenous drug use was soaring in his town of roughly 4,300, where 23 percent of residents live below the poverty line. He feared that people addicted to injectable painkillers might be plucking used needles off lawns, shooting up — and passing them on.

a reply to: macman

And to when you boil it down even further to a yummy reduction, it amounts to laziness. People are too lazy to take care of themselves and look for others to provide free crap and tell them what to do.

It's just not that easy.

We no longer live in a society where that works. There must be a social safety net. Citizens should be perfectly able and willing to have Government provide National Health Care and Rehabilitation services to those who truly need and want it.

Expecting disenfranchised, poor, uneducated as well as drug addled folk, to make good decisions is just nonsense.

And jail doesn't do a damn thing to fix it either.

~Tenth

originally posted by: macman
a reply to: JohnnyCanuck
The tax payer should not be paying a single dime for these people.
How about we bus them up to Canada? I mean, you guys have "free" health care. Why not put your money..err I mean free health care where your compassion is and take care of these people.

My that's glib! Not gonna happen though. So what's your option? Call out the Marines and mow them down? Barring that, you're just gonna have to deal. Good thing there's no IV drug use in the military or Vets, eh?

a reply to: Krazysh0t

Oh cry me a river. I have studied addiction. I grew up with a parent that was a substance abuse counselor.

And yes....I will kick them as that seems to be the only way to not continually fund people like this.

Did these people make the choice to use drugs?

Did these people make the choice to have sex?

Do you believe in natural selection?

Do believe in Darwinism?

a reply to: Krazysh0t

In 2005, Planned Parenthood of Indiana received a total of $3.3 million in funding from government contracts and grants. By 2014, that funding had dropped to $1.9 million. Five of Planned Parenthood’s smaller clinics in the state -- the health centers in Scottsburg, Madison, Richmond, Bedford and Warsaw -- were unable to keep up with the growing technology costs that were necessary to remain competitive as a medical provider. All five clinics that were forced to close had offered HIV testing. None had offered abortions.

This makes no since. Technology costs to remain competitive? So they were losing "business" to their competitors? If thats the case, germane to HIV, then there shouldn't have been an outbreak. HIV is a very simple test and you can have results like right now.

a reply to: NavyDoc

That article is about the guy who owns the clinic complaining because he doesn't have enough assistance in dealing with the growing surge of HIV cases.

"We need help. But that costs money. My clinic serves the poorest people in Indiana, potentially the poorest in the country," Cooke said. "We do a sliding scale here. If they can, they may pay us 10 dollars for care. I'm hopeful this declaration provides the funding we have needed.

Yes that very same money that was slashed from the budget for PP. You literally just posted another article that makes it clear that getting rid of the Planned Parenthood clinic was a VERY bad idea for Indiana.