Julie Vogtman, Senior Counsel

Raising kids is expensive – at least, that’s what my parents tell me, and my husband’s parents, and my friends who have kids. I do want children of my own someday, but first I want to make sure my husband and I are financially stable and as prepared as we can be for a slew of new expenses (not to mention new stresses!). In the meantime, I’m relying on prescription birth control, which is no small expense itself – but I’m lucky to have a good job with health insurance coverage that picks up most of the cost. And when the time comes, I know I’ll have access to quality care to make sure I’m healthy before, during, and after a baby.

For many low-income women, however, these choices are much harder. Even women who have health insurance may face high deductibles and co-payments for doctor’s visits and prescriptions. Co-payments for contraception typically cost $15 to $50 a month, and alternatives to the pill, such as the IUD, can cost hundreds of dollars and often aren’t covered by insurance at all. For a young woman trying to cover groceries and rent on the $1,200 or so she earns each month from her minimum wage job, paying for birth control may seem impossible. A study commissioned by Planned Parenthood last year found that 34 percent of women voters have struggled with the cost of prescription birth control at some point in their lives – and among young adult women, who are most at risk for unplanned pregnancy, more than half (55 percent) have experienced a time when they could not afford to use birth control consistently.

The headlines on the budget front haven't changed much in the past few weeks. As the country moves perilously close to reaching the debt limit on August 2, Republican leaders continue to insist that revenue increases cannot be part of any budget deal. In other words, rather than asking millionaires, billionaires and wealthy corporations to pay even a dime more in taxes to reduce the deficit, Republicans are demanding that any deficit reduction come exclusively from spending cuts — and based on the House Republican budget plan, federal programs that people with low incomes depend on (like Medicaid, SNAP/Food stamps, child care and Head Start) are the likely targets for major cuts.