Reducing unplanned pregnancies through Medicaid family planning services

By Melissa Kearney and Phillip Levine, Brookings Institution

There is widespread consensus among the American public that rates of teen pregnancy and unintended pregnancies to young, unmarried women are too high. Approximately 30 percent of teenage girls in the United States become pregnant and 20 percent give birth by age 20. Increasingly, policy-makers and advocacy groups are recognizing that the high rate of unintended pregnancy among unmarried women in their twenties is also a major social issue.

This study describes a recent analysis of state policies that expanded eligibility for Medicaid family planning services to women who do not meet regular Medicaid eligibility criteria. The results of this research show that these expanded eligibility policies had a significant impact on reducing unplanned births.

The effect on birth rates was largest for women ages 18 to 24. Data on individual behavior confirm that this reduction in births was achieved through increased use of contraception among sexually active women. The authors estimate the policy cost of preventing an unwanted birth to be around $6,800. They conclude that this is a cost-effective policy intervention relative to other policies and programs targeted at reducing teen and unwanted births.