Share Your Story: What does birth control without co-pays mean for you?
Has cost ever kept you from using the method of birth control that’s best for you? Has it forced you to make tough choices, like going without birth control or even delaying paying a bill so you can afford it?
Thanks to the health care law, new insurance plans are required to cover birth control and other women’s preventive health services with no co-payments or deductibles at the start of their next plan year. As more health plans come under the law’s reach, more and more women will be able to keep their wallets closed when they pick up their birth control.
Tell us — what does it mean to you that you will soon get birth control with no co-pays or deductibles?
Please note: The views expressed in the stories below are those of the authors themselves and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the National Women's Law Center. All statements of fact in these stories have been provided by the individual authors, and the National Women's Law Center cannot and does not vouch for their accuracy. The Center will compile the stories and may use them, in whole or in part, in our advocacy efforts.
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Your Stories
Lisa Ann Frisone
Cliffside Park, NJ, Part Time Publishing / Unemployed Professional Actress
I am happy for the women that will benefit from this. However, I'd like to bring your attention to the fact that there is a whole segment of women who are under employed, living day to day without health insurance of any kind. Many of us have a real need for access to health insurance and healthcare as our mothers, grandmothers, aunts and other relatives have had breast, ovarian and other female related health concerns that put us in high risk categories. We are college educated and working hard to make ends meet. Our employers don't provide health insurance and we don't earn enough money to buy a policy of our own that actually provides the coverage we need. We also often make too much money to qualify for government assistance and free/discounted clinics are also limited in the service they may be able to offer us. Is there anyone concerned about us, or are we forgotten, casualties of The War on Women?
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Rosemary Diehl
West Palm Beach, Florida, sales
Blessedly I no longer have to worry about birth control. In the days that I did, I paid for it before I paid for my car payment. I now volunteer for a fund that helps to pay for abortions for women who want or need it.. For an extented time I answered the phone for our fund. I cannot tell you how many times women told me about the way they had been using birth control and were no longer able to do so due to price. The cost of an abortion is essentually the same price as birth control for a year. Thing being that they can recieve funding though NAF and local channels for an abortion. Wouldn't we rather prevent than abort? I know my fund would.
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Rosemary Diehl
West Palm Beach, Florida, sales
Blessedly I no longer have to worry about birth control. In the days that I did, I paid for it before I paid for my car payment. I now volunteer for a fund that helps to pay for abortions for women who want or need it.. For an extented time I answered the phone for our fund. I cannot tell you how many times women told me about the way they had been using birth control and were no longer able to do so due to price. The cost of an abortion is essentually the same price as birth control for a year. Thing being that they can recieve funding though NAF and local channels for an abortion. Wouldn't we rather prevent than abort? I know my fund would.
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lois schreur
, nebraska,
one of our college students had to drop out of school after she and her husband ended up with a pregnancy and baby because they did not have the money for birth control. birth control access should not be an issue, EVER!
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John Hablinski
, Texas, Retired
I’m a 62 year old man and as you may guess I don’t have any direct personal experience but, you know, I had a mother and a sister and friends many of whom are women and I care about them. I want anything that will make their life easier. If pregnancy happened to be a condition we men shared with women there would be no discussion, birth control would have been free from the day in 1960 or so when they first hit the market. The Republican Party really is waging a war against women and both Romney & Ryan have vowed to totally repeal the Affordable Care Act, if that happens then ladies I’m afraid much of the progress you have made will be lost because the Republicans want to keep you pregnant and barefooted forever. VOTE!
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Anne Griffin-Lewin
Minneapolis, MN,
To me it means thousands of women who will be able to make better choices. It means many fewer unwanted pregnancies, and therefore much less demand for abortion. It means fewer people having children that they don't want, are physically or emotionally unable to parent, or can't support, and therefore less drain on Social Services and much more importantly, less human suffering.
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Elizabeth M. Stevens
Inez, Kentucky, College Student
Birth control without co-pays means that I don't have to put my life on hold for one week out of every month. Before I started hormone therapy I was plagued with irregular menstrual cycles, painful cramps, and heavy bleeding. After just a couple of months on the pill I could tell a difference. The pill gave me my life back.
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Eileen Crowe
, Ohio,
I've never used birth control for anything regarding a pregnancy or abortion, but I have used it as prescribed by my gynecologist to treat and eliminate a biological problem that popped up. Many pro-life people (and Paul Ryan is probably no exception) act as if birth control is used for nothing but abortion. But there are all sorts of cases nationwide where women simply use birth control for their own reproductive health - and the female reproductive system is like any other biological system in our bodies and things do occasionally go wrong. No co-pays for birth control would mean peace of mind to these several thousand women in the US every year.
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valerie longo
pasadena, CA, student
Birth control without co-pays means safety to me. There are countless women out there, some of whom are friends and acquaintances of mine, who simply cannot afford birth control. These women often dangerously choose to go without, or cut costs on essentials just so they can afford this important little pill. I started using birth control pills very recently, and they have already became invaluable to me. It would be a terrible thing if I or any women like me could no longer get access to birth control. I do not want to bring a child into this world before I am prepared, and I am tired of seeing so many young women do just that. Easy access to affordable birth control can be a wonderful asset. Not only does it help prevent countless unwanted pregnancies, but having cheap and easy access to birth control makes it so much easier for women everywhere to choose the exact method of birth control that is right for them. Finally, by providing other preventative health care options at no co-pay, it helps citizens everywhere to stay healthy and function well, without having to delay care due to lack of funds. And, preventative care helps to catch any illnesses or conditions before they develop, thereby keeping more people safe, and in the end, costing doctors and hospitals a lot less money, money which they would otherwise have to use to treat ill patients in the future.
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judith sanders
fredericksburg, VA, retired
I'm too old to need birth control, but it certainly was essential during the 12 years that i was in the Army. I'll be blunt: I don't want to have to pay for all the social services that unplanned and unwanted children require. Progress and productivity dictate that we will need fewer workers, not more. Don't have children to fill jobs that won't be there.And, I want my Daughter to have choices. She's getting a STEM degree from a fine university, and is seriously thinking about emigrating unless religious meddling in government stops. The US will become a 2nd-rate nation if our best and brightest leave. We have NEVER been a "Christian nation"- US law is ultimately derived from Anglo-Saxon and Roman law, not the tribal monarchies of ancient Israel. From the beginning, Jewish, Persian, and Arabic businessmen played key roles in making the American colonies viable, and let's not forget the religions of the people whose unwilling shoulders we stood upon: the Native Americans and Black Africans. Atheists and deists were vital to the formation of this nation. Our past, as well as our future, is multiethnic and multireligious.
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