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

Fact Sheet | How the Affordable Care Act Helps Women

December 08, 2011

The Affordable Care Act makes important advances for women’s health and, when fully implemented, will provide millions of women and their families with access to high-quality and affordable health care and coverage. While some parts of the law are being phased in over time, there are many provisions that women and families are already benefitting from.

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Webinars & Presentations | December 2011 Reform Matters Conference Call and Agenda

December 07, 2011

The December 2011 Reform Matters conference call focused on the challenge of the Affordable Care Act before the Supreme Court and other federal updates.

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Fact Sheet | Letter to HHS Secretary on the Development of the Essential Health Benefit Package

December 05, 2011

A variety of consumer groups came together to lay out the principles they believe should guide the development of the Essential Health Benefit package. In the letter, we ask the Secretary to ensure the creation of a benefit package that addresses the insufficient coverage currently sold in the individual and small group markets and that covers the physical, mental, and behavioral health care services that people need to get and stay as healthy and functional as possible.

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Fact Sheet | The Rehberg Draft Abuses the Appropriations Process to Undermine Women’s Access to Preventive Health Care and Harm Women’s Health

November 30, 2011

The Rehberg Draft includes dangerous provisions that could threaten women’s ability to purchase health insurance that includes abortion coverage, aims to eliminate millions of women’s access to basic, preventive healthcare, and expands existing refusal laws that would harm women’s health.

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Fact Sheet | Letter to the President Opposing the Religious Employer Exemption

November 30, 2011

The undersigned organizations, representing millions of health care consumers, patients and providers, strongly supported passage of the Affordable Care Act and are working to protect the Act from efforts to undermine or repeal it. To that end, we are writing in opposition to the religious employer exemption issued as an Interim Final Rule on August 3, 2011, to the requirement that all new health insurance plans provide coverage for contraceptives without cost-sharing, and to urge you to reject calls to deny additional women the coverage they need.

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