Phony Kelly’s "Plan" for Women’s Health Has Got Some Serious Problems

New Hampshire Sen. Kelly Ayotte is trying to pass off a heap of whoppers about her “women’s health” policies — but we see right through her political ploys.

In fact, she’s pinkwashing her record so voters forget she voted six times to defund Planned Parenthood and has been an active crusader against reproductive health care access for her entire career. So Planned Parenthood New Hampshire Action Fund is calling “Phony Kelly” out.

Why is Kelly being so phony when it comes to women’s health? Because she’s running for reelection and has seen the polls: 73% of Granite Staters support access to safe and legal abortion, and 63% support Planned Parenthood.

To see for yourself, check out Phony Kelly’s five-point “plan” for women’s health care below — and our helpful corrections.

What Phony Kelly Says She Does vs. What She Actually Does

 

What Phony Kelly Says She's Doing:

"Empowering Women to Save for Health Care Expenses"

What Phony Kelly Is Actually Doing:

"Voting Against Women’s Access to Affordable Health Care"

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New Hampshire women receive affordable health care through the ACA and Planned Parenthood — but Phony Kelly wants them both gone. Remember:

• Phony Kelly voted six times to defund Planned Parenthood

• She also wants the Affordable Care Act repealed... but has no adequate plan for how to provide access to health care to the nearly 100,000 Granite Staters who are now covered through the ACA.

Moreover, because of the ACA, insurance companies can no longer classify being a woman as a pre-existing condition or charge women more for coverage. Annual well-woman visits and birth control are covered without a copay. But apparently in Phony Kelly’s world, taking away women’s benefits is, ahem, “empowering” them.

 

 

What Phony Kelly Says She's Doing:

"Protecting Access to Mammograms"

What Phony Kelly Is Actually Doing:

"Limiting Access to Mammograms and Breast Cancer Screenings"

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Purporting to protect access to mammograms is laughable when you look at Phony Kellly’s actual record. She supports:

• Repealing the ACA, which has provided no-copay preventive health services, including mammograms, to nearly 300,000 women in the Granite State.

• Voting against Title X funding for community health centers

• ”Defunding” Planned Parenthood — which she has voted to do six times... which would have restricted necessary access to breast cancer screenings for thousands of New Hampshire women

 

What Phony Kelly Says She's Doing:

"Expanding Access to Birth Control"

What Phony Kelly Is Actually Doing:

"Restricting Access to Birth Control"

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We call hypocrite here! Phony Kelly’s proposal on birth control would actually…

• Leave out women who use birth control methods that can’t be stocked on store shelves, like IUDs

• Make birth control more expensive because (like Donald Trump) Phony Kelly supports repealing insurance coverage for no-copay birth control — and without insurance coverage, birth control pills can cost up to $600 a year, putting them out of reach for many women already struggling financially

In fact, Phony Kelly has voted multiple times to repeal the ACA and once said the law’s no-copay birth control benefit is “not a women’s rights issue.” Yes, seriously.

In reality, the ACA barred insurance companies from charging women more for coverage and expanded access to birth control without a copay. That progress needs to be built on, not taken away.

 

What Phony Kelly Says She's Doing:

"Supporting Community Health Centers"

What Phony Kelly Is Actually Doing:

"Voting Against Community Health Centers"

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The only world in which Phony Kelly is “supporting” community health centers is in her head. The truth is that she:

• Voted against Title X funding, which provides funding to New Hampshire’s Community Health Centers every year

• Repeatedly voted against the ACA, which provided $11 billion over five years to support Community Health Centers across the nation

Phony Kelly’s votes against Title X funding and the ACA have jeopardized care at Planned Parenthood health centers, and aimed to restrict access to care for women and low-income families at the very Community Health Centers that Phony Kelly claims to support.

 

What Phony Kelly Says She's Doing:

"Standing Up for Healthy Pregnancies"

What Phony Kelly Is Actually Doing:

"Ignored the Need for Zika Relief — Which Would Actually Help Women Have Healthy Pregnancies — for 223 Days"

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This claim makes us want to slap our foreheads. At a time when women were in dire need of support for healthy pregnancies, she ignored them for as long as she could. Consider this:

• The Zika virus is a serious, ongoing public health crisis. Since Spring, nine cases of Zika have been reported in New Hampshire, and for the first time pregnant women were  told not to travel to areas within the continental United States where Zika was active. In that same time, the Centers of Disease Control, public health experts, and the White House called for Congress to approve funding for Zika prevention that includes family planning.

Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) immediately urged her colleagues to approve funding for a Zika virus vaccine. And yet for months, Phony Kelly ignored direct calls from public health experts and the media, including New Hampshire’s Concord Monitor, to take the threat of Zika seriously and prioritize the health of New Hampshire women.

 

New Hampshire Voters Aren’t Buying What Phony Kelly Is Selling

Phony Kelly isn’t fooling us with her bogus plan for women’s health. She’s out of touch with the needs of New Hampshire’s women and the Granite State’s long tradition of bipartisan support for safe and legal abortion and Planned Parenthood.

Tags: Donald Trump, Election 2016, New Hampshire, Kelly Ayotte