Health Care Reform

The Affordable Care Act provides vitally important advances for the health of women and their families.  As the law is implemented on the state and federal levels, and as more Americans gain access to health insurance, we’re working to ensure that new health care law benefits women as part of our effort to improve women’s health.

Highlights

Fact Sheet | Strong Public Support Continues for States to Accept Federal Funds to Cover More Uninsured People Through Medicaid

April 9, 2013

A new national survey sponsored by the Georgetown University Center for Children and Families and the National Women’s Law Center shows strong support among adults 18 and older for their states to accept federal dollars that have been allocated to cover more uninsured people through Medicaid.  The survey, conducted March 15-19, 2013 among 1,016 adults 18 and older, has a margin of error of + 4 percentage points.

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Legal Briefs & Testimony | NWLC Amicus Briefs Supporting the Contraceptive Coverage Benefit

April 30, 2013

The Center is filing friend of the court briefs in lawsuits challenging the federal contraceptive coverage benefit, brought by employers who want to deny their employees this important benefit.  These cases involve suits brought under the First Amendment to the US Constitution and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.  These cases will decide whether a boss’s religious beliefs trump women’s health and women’s access to the health care they need.

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Fact Sheet | Women’s Access to Preventive Services Affirmed by HHS

February 22, 2013

On February 20, 2013, the Department of Health and Human Services released a set of Frequently Asked Questions which clarified many issues related to implementation of the Affordable Care Act’s preventive services requirement.  The FAQ is an important step towards ensuring that insurance plans and issuers implement the Women’s Preventive Health Services provision so that women get the comprehensive and affordable services guaranteed by the Affordable Care Act.  While the FAQ leaves some implementation questions unanswered, the National Women’s Law Center is pleased that the Department addressed several major issues to make sure that women have the coverage required by the law.  The charts below summarize implementation issues and how the FAQ responds to them.

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Fact Sheet | What the Medicaid Eligibility Expansion Means for Women

November 5, 2012

The Medicaid eligibility expansion is a crucial part of the health care law. Starting in 2014, 15 million uninsured Americans, including 7 million women will be newly eligible for Medicaid coverage.  Medicaid is an effective program that has the potential to improve the health and economic wellbeing of millions of American women while at the same time saving states money and creating jobs. Medicaid is and will continue to be a crucial source of health care for low-income women in America and it is vital to women’s health that states move forward with the Medicaid eligibility expansion. In this issue brief, we will examine why the current Medicaid program is important to women and why the Medicaid expansion is a good deal for women and states.

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More Resources

Reports & Toolkits | President Obama’s Fiscal Year 2012 Budget and H.R. 1, the Continuing Resolution: A Tale of Two Visions

February 18, 2011

The budget is a statement of national priorities, and in February 2011, the nation was presented with two drastically different visions: President Obama's budget for Fiscal Year 2012 and H.R 1, the House Republican bill for funding (or de-funding) the federal government for the remainder of Fiscal Year 2011.

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Fact Sheet | Fleming H.R. 1 Amendment Will Jeopardize Patient Access to Health Care Services and Information

February 16, 2011

Representative John Fleming (R-LA) has filed an amendment to H.R. 1 that would prevent the Obama Administration from rescinding or modifying a regulation finalized during the waning days of the Bush Administration that undermines patient access to medical care and information.

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Fact Sheet | Gingrey H.R. 1 Amendment Will Make It Harder for Low-Income Women to Obtain Access to Contraceptives

February 16, 2011

Representative Phil Gingrey (R-GA) has filed an amendment to H.R. 1 that would prevent the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) from implementing a provision of the Affordable Care Act that made it easier for states to make more women eligible for family planning services under Medicaid and guaranteed that all new benchmark plans covered family planning services. Known as the Medicaid Family Planning State Option, this provision has already expanded access to family planning services for women in several states—and has the potential to help even more.

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Webinars & Presentations | 2011 Reform Matters Conference Call Agendas

February 09, 2011

The Reform Matters conference calls are monthly conversations among women's health care and reproductive rights advocates to focus on health care reform policy at the state and federal levels, provide an on-going forum to learn from one another, and share experiences and questions that have come up in addressing various health care reform proposals. Calls take place the second Thursday of every month. This resource links to all of the Reform Matters agendas for the year 2011.

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Webinars & Presentations | February 2011 Reform Matters Conference Call Agenda and Materials

February 09, 2011

This resource contains the agenda and materials for the February 2011 Reform Matters conference call. On this call we discussed Medicaid & the Affordable Care Act, as well as threats to Medicaid at the state and federal levels.

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