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Dania Palanker, Senior Counsel

Dania is a Senior Counsel for Health and Reproductive Rights. Her work focuses primarily on implementing health reform and expanding access to quality, affordable health care for women and their families. Prior to joining the Law Center, Dania worked for the Service Employees International Union (SEIU). Starting her work at SEIU in the research department, she became interested in expanding access to health care to low income families and spent a few years as Deputy Administrator of a health benefit program at SEIU, working to provide affordable health insurance to previously uninsured low wage workers and their families. After the passage of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), she worked on implementing the law as Associate Director of Health Policy. Her background in the ACA includes insurance reforms, coverage expansions and delivery system reform, with particular expertise in employer benefits and insurance reforms. She is a graduate of Georgetown University Law Center and the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.

My Take

Scaring Young Women from the Health Care Law

Posted by Dania Palanker, Senior Counsel | Posted on: September 20, 2013 at 12:20 pm

The latest strategy to undermine the health care law: scare young women.

That is the strategy used in an ad released yesterdayThe ad starts with a young woman walking through a doctor’s office as ominous music is playing in the background. The woman walking with her says “Oh, I see you decided to sign up for Obamacare.” The way she says that, we suspect there is a problem. The doctor visits the exam room and then leaves her alone on an exam table. And we are left waiting and wondering – what is the truth about the coverage she signed up for through Obamacare?

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Important Regulation Clarifies Rules of the Road for Health Care Law

Posted by Dania Palanker, Senior Counsel | Posted on: August 27, 2013 at 05:36 pm

Today, the IRS and Department of Treasury issued final regulations that bring us one step closer to expanding coverage options for millions of uninsured Americans who will start enrolling in new health plans on October 1. These final rules finalize the health care law’s requirement that individuals carry a minimum level of insurance. This requirement is central to improving women’s access to the health insurance market by making it financially possible for insurers to provide coverage to all who seek it at a reasonable cost.

Unlike today’s market, the 2014 health insurance market will provide comprehensive coverage to women regardless of pre-existing conditions that includes coverage for essential health benefits including maternity coverage – and women won’t be charged more than men for that coverage. In order to make that market a reality, it is important that people don’t wait to get sick to enroll in coverage.

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In Honor of the Women Who Died from Complications from Pre-Roe Abortions

Posted by Dania Palanker, Senior Counsel | Posted on: January 22, 2013 at 01:11 pm

I have a friend who almost died from an abortion. 

She was unwed and pregnant. She found an abortion provider. She had the procedure. But something went wrong. She ended up in the emergency room bleeding with an infection that could have taken her life.

 This was in New York in the 1960’s. This was pre-Roe. Women died from complications of illegal abortions. 

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Comparing Health Plans Just Got Easier

Posted by Dania Palanker, Senior Counsel | Posted on: September 24, 2012 at 04:15 pm

Have you ever tried to compare health plans? It isn’t easy. Insurance companies design brochures to sell their plans. They have pictures of people holding hands, pushing a child on a swing, smiling in the doctor’s office and just being happy. They highlight everything that is great about the plan and, by the time you get to the chart summarizing the benefits, you would think this is the best insurance plan ever.

Then you look at another plan’s brochure that also makes the plan seem like the best insurance plan ever. But you try to compare the benefits and you aren’t really sure what you are comparing. The brochures use different terms and different formats. You can’t find a description of maternity coverage. You are trying to figure out how all the dollars and percentages add up to actual costs.

Starting today, things are different. That is because plans now have to provide all applicants and enrollees a standard Summary of Benefits and Coverage (called the SBC for short) and a uniform glossary. The Summary is simple to read, short, and provides a standard chart of benefits and coverage examples that every plan must use. The Glossary provides standard definitions of important health insurance terms that impact your coverage.

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The Reality of Birth Control Costs

Posted by Dania Palanker, Senior Counsel | Posted on: August 02, 2012 at 03:32 pm

A few months ago, I saw a post on Facebook saying that birth control only costs women $10 a month, so we don’t need to get it for free. This video blog has been percolating inside of me ever since. Let’s put aside the issue that the health care law is not providing free birth control (the law requires insurance plans to provide preventive services with no cost sharing), and talk about what the real cost of birth control is for women. The monthly costs of birth control—plus their annual visit with their ob/gyn to get their prescription—can add up to hundreds of dollars a year with health insurance. Watch my blog post and learn how the costs of birth control add up and what those costs mean for women and their families.

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