Answer
It is rather difficult to answer unequivocally the question of whether eliminating funding on Family Planning Services would have a positive budgetary effect compared with the impact on individuals utilizing these services. Firstly, comparing the impact on the budget with the influence on people is not easy. Secondly, the budgetary impact will be short-term while the influence on the individuals will be long-term (Milstead, 2013). Moreover, it is almost impossible to state precisely whether the positive impact on the budget should be expected without observing the actual calculations that would specify the way these resources will be redistributed.
Nevertheless, it can be stated that, in general, the short-term positive effect will be observable when 2.8 billion USD are eliminated since these resources will be directed at covering the areas of mandatory spending. Therefore, this expenditure item will no longer be in the budget. Nevertheless, family planning services include a wide variety of aspects, such as family support, the provision of means of contraception, and so on, and if access to public funding is cut, people will have to cover all the anticipated costs themselves (Stanhope & Lancaster, 2014).
Moreover, this may lead to the fact that fewer children will be born; respectively, there will be less workforce, and there fewer taxes will be paid to the budget. It will imply that retirement contributions will be lower as well. Also, socially disadvantaged or poor people will be forced to give birth to unplanned children if they do not have access to contraception and the state will be forced to increase the costs for supporting children that were abandoned by their parents (White, Grossman, Hopkins, & Potter, 2012).
Thus, by reducing the funding by 2.8 billion USD, the state will have to spend more resources in the future to compensate for the negative consequences of such budget cuts (Van Wormer& Link, 2015). Consequently, depending on the way these 2.8 billion will be used, the outcomes can be either positive or negative. Besides, the health and the well-being of people should be the top priority of the government; thus, it is essential to weigh both the positive effects of budget cuts and the negative implications for the population.
References
Milstead, J. A. (2013). Health policy and politics: A nurse’s guide (4th ed.). Burlington, MA: Jones & Bartlett Learning.
Stanhope, M., & Lancaster, J. (2014). Public health nursing (8th ed.). New York, NY: Elsevier.
Van Wormer, K., & Link, R. (2015). Social welfare policy for a sustainable future. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.
White, K., Grossman, D., Hopkins, K., & Potter, E. (2012). Cutting family planning in Texas. The New England Journal of Medicine, 367(13), 1179-1181.