Today, the Obama administration stood up for women’s health and announced it would keep in place a proposed rule that ensures that new insurance plans include coverage of contraception.
My cervix is excited for 2012 and yours should be too! The Affordable Care Act (ACA), despite its tender age of not-even-two, has and will continue to uphold its promise to provide more women with the quality affordable care we need to stay healthy and cervical health is no exception.
The President seems unaware of the fact that Catholics who matter have disagreed with the Vatican’s current prohibition on contraception. Catholics, including institutions within the Catholic community, are free to follow their conscience on contraception. It is not up to the Obama administration to decide what action is more “Catholic” on the matter of contraception.
A broad religious exemption for contraceptive coverage would go too far, depriving millions of women of an important health benefit. Instead of expanding exemptions, we should be expanding access to affordable care.
Let’s let the Bishops sleep by themselves and keep them out of everyone’s bedrooms, from the President and First Lady on down. President Obama: Make sure that all women have the same access to birth control without a co-pay that you, your staff, members of Congress and others will enjoy.
There is another 99 percent group in our country, distinct from but inextricably entwined with the now more familiar #99Percent. I refer to the 99 percent of American women who have ever had sexual intercourse and have used a birth control method at least some of the time.
PRCH supports the recent recommendation of the Institute of Medicine (IOM) to include contraception in the preventive health benefits for women under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA). As physicians, we know that access to contraception is essential to the health and well-being of our patients.
I firmly believe the requirements under the Affordable Care Act, and the slate of regulations being created to implement it, infringe on no one’s conscience, demand no one change her or his religious beliefs, discriminate against no man or woman, put no additional economic burden on the poor, interfere with no one’s medical decisions, compromise no one’s health — that is, if you consider the law without refusal clauses.
Nearly four in ten Latinos are uninsured. “Si se puede…” can mean “IF she can…” and this conditional statement hints at the obstacles that remain after the HHS decision. IF a Latina can get health insurance, IF she can make it to a provider’s office who can provide culturally-competent care in her language, and IF she can obtain and fill her prescription, THEN she will be able to fully enjoy the benefits of no-copay birth control.
The Department of Health and Human Services has adopted guidelines for insurance coverage on women’s preventive health services that include all the recommendations recently made by the Institute of Medicine and require new health insurance plans to cover women’s preventive services such as well-woman visits, breastfeeding support, domestic violence screening, and contraception without charging a co-payment, co-insurance or a deductible.
