Brittany Papalia, Outreach Intern

Over the past 23 years I have been lucky enough to have great health coverage and benefits from being a dependent on my parents’ plan. When I was 12 years old I was “lucky” enough to experience what it was really like to be a woman, and it was painful. My father spent many months taking me to the E.R. with both of us assuming that I was some sort of freak-girl, until finally an OB/GYN prescribed a birth control that eliminated the pain.

Because of the health insurance my father receives, I only have to pay $5 a month for my pills, which has been quite the blessing. Not only that but my bi-annual trips to the OB/GYN were affordable for my family. I found myself luckier than some girls I knew who were always struggling when it came to receiving safe, reproductive health care.

This past December I received my Bachelor’s degree and alongside the excitement of being a college graduate, panic struck. Come June, I will have to begin paying back my student loans. Jobs haven’t exactly been thrown at me either, which is why I am thankful for the Affordable Care Act (ACA).

Last week we told you about the House Committee on Oversight hearing that spent three hours addressing why employers should not have to cover birth control – without a single woman on the first panel of witnesses. Representative Darrell Issa, Chairman of the Committee, barred Georgetown Law student Sandra Fluke from the panel.

Chairman Issa questioned Fluke’s experience and he said that, as a student, she wasn’t qualified to testify. Thursday, Sandra responded to that assertion. “I’m an American woman who uses contraceptives,” she said. That’s what makes her qualified.

Well, this week she received the respect she deserved and ears to listen. Sandra made it on to a number of news shows, and on Thursday – a week after being rejected from the initial hearing – she finally got her chance to speak on Capitol Hill. Fluke then explained that since Georgetown University doesn’t cover contraceptives, a friend of hers eventually had to have one of her ovaries surgically removed. Oral contraceptives would have prevented the growth of a cyst the size of a tennis ball, but her friend could not afford the out-of-pocket costs.