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
Tracey
Trevose, PA, Teacher
Recently I have begun paying back a huge debt toward my student loans. This has caused an extreme financial burden on my fiancee and me. I had to go into a special program for credit card debt. Every month I have to weigh the costs of an extra doctor bill due to my asthma and birth control co-pays for medication and doctor visits. I have so many house hold bills already. We try to pay what we can towards expenses, but sometimes its do I buy necessary groceries or pick up my birth control? We are trying to stabalize our debt but medical expenses are an added expense we can barely afford.
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Margaret
Pueblo, CO, Homemaker/Retired
What contraceptives w/o co-pay mean to me? Personally nothing, as I have had hysterectomy long time ago. However, yes, they mean that more women will avoid unwanted pregnancies AND unwanted children, thus less children will end up on welfare, thus the resources that are based on my tax money, will not be stretched so thin. Also, I am glad for women who need hormonal therapy, delivered via contraceptives. Some of them were unable to afford the overpriced pills, but now their death panels, ehm, insurance companies, can't deny them the meds they need.
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luzmejor
Roswell, NM, A retired RN who worked in general hospitals as student and professional
I studied nursing for 3 years in the old hospital-based training schools during the early 1950s. We lived on the hospital grounds, worked and studied there every day and were sent to specialty hospitals as well. WWII had ended and the Korean War and who knows what other hidden wars of conquest were definitely ON.We were taught by physicians, nurses and professionals in all specialties current at that time. I can say with no exaggeration at all, that except for my fellow nurses, other patients and a few wise and sympathetic doctors, even very dignified pregnant women were treated as though they had engaged in a great sin in "getting themselves pregnant.." During my first year, other nurses relayed to me the news that any woman brought into that hospitals emergency room with severe vaginal bleeding was to be turned away. When I asked why, I was told that even without being examined, she would automatically be suspected of attempting an abortion and hospital officials would then be charged with a crime that probably nobody had even attempted.Such is the power of prejudices of any and all kindsThat bigoted opinion against pregnant women must endow its believers with some special treatment or permanent status because there is no other apparent reason for such a prejudice to exist. I dare say that those Holier-than-God persons are actually questioning the wisdom of the Almighty Herself!What brought me to the knowledge that females were not treated as equals anywhere is that I had already been observing their bad treatment by authority figures since I was a young child.
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Jacqui Black
Evanston, IL, Real Estate
As a U.K. citizen I received FREE contraception from the National Health Service (NHS) when I requested it at age 23 in 1970. From then on, until I moved to the United States in 1982, I did not have to think about it or ever worry about getting pregnant.It is now 2012 and the United States of America is still discussing issues which became non-subjects in the rest of the developed world (and some less developed nations as well) decades ago. Thank G-d for President Obama and his vision to bring America out of the "dark ages" . Next step Single Payer Health Care!
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William Fraser
Santa Cruz, CA, Software Engineer
This doesn't affect me directly, because I had a vasectomy following the birth of my second child, but I am quite pleased to think that money will no longer be the reason that people avoid taking birth control.This could be a major step forward in stabilizing our population.
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Harriet
, Minnesota,
I am not at an age anymore where I need birth control, but I have two daugters who do. Both are very hard working women. My oldest daughter does not have insurance and she has gone to Planned Parenthood for her yearly exams in the past. Getting yearly exams for prevention of cancer and as well as birth control would really help both my daughters as they both make under $30 thou a year. These exams are something a woman needs to in order to detect early forms of cancer, and are very necesssary for every women's health.I also take bio-identical hormones for menopause and just found out from my insurance company they no longer cover those hormones and I will have to pay out of pocket for them. While I am nearing the end of my need for these hormones I still use them now. I feel bad for many women who are just starting to go though debilitating meopausal symptoms and will not be able to afford this type of help either.Women's health needs have been ingored and put on the back burner for way too long. There a too many women who haven't been able to afford these services and that's a real shame. I don't understand the big hoop-de-doo over women getting preventative care and coverage when they cannot afford it. It truly boggles my mind.
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Kimberley Fischer
, California,
I always had irregular and extremely heavy periods. They would last for two weeks or more with heavy bleeding. Contraceptives and iron supplements were a medical necessity for me just to remain healthy! As for contraception? When your periods are irregular, the church supported "rhythm method" is useless. A lack of contraceptives would have meant either denying my husband his conjugal rights or being "barefoot and pregnant" on a constant basis.The expense has been horrific and is even more so now that I have reached menopause and now have to take hormones to avoid multi-hour (yes, you read that right, multi-HOUR) hot flashes. If contraceptives had been covered with no copay while I was still able to control my condition with them I would have saved over a thousand dollars a year for upwards of 20 years. Imagine if I had been able to save $20,000! My house would have been paid off, and I would not be struggling to pay my mortgage on the one income we have been reduced to with the ongoing recession caused by the Republican insistance on giving millions in tax breaks to billion dollar industries and overfunding the military.
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Julie
Fayetteville, Arkansas, office worker
What does birth control without co-pay mean for me? It means that, hopefully, my daughter won’t be turned into a baby-making machine. She struggles with money, and only works 2 days a week. She has one child already. Birth control without co-pay means I won’t have to see young girls in our society ending up getting pregnant over and over again, till they end up with 10-12 children, with no means to support them, and not enough time for them. Any hope of that mother ever getting an education and/or good job would cease, because there’s no time for anything when one has to raise 10-12 children. There’s never enough money either. THAT’s how it used to be when women had zero control of their reproductive situation. I keep wondering why those “devout” Catholic women only have one or two kids these days. That church is so anti-contraceptives that each one of those women should have at least a dozen kids these days. What happened there? Could it be that even those “devout” anti-contraceptive supporters are actually using contraceptives themselves? Hypocrisy prevails. In my mid-twenties, I had a child and always wanted another. But I was discovering out that my spouse was abusive. Had I not been able to control my reproductive situation, I may have had ended up pregnant again, and then been perhaps permanently dependent on someone who was abusive, I would have been more dependent on someone I was growing to despise. It was hard enough being married to the abusive one with me having one child, with even more kids I would have felt even more trapped. I would have felt trapped for the rest of my life. That really happened to MANY women in the 50s and 60s. There were MANY dysfunctional families too. In the 70s, I was so very thankful that I was able to go to Planned Parenthood. They were so kind, understanding, and non-judgmental. When I had no money, they helped me. I feel like women everywhere are still faced with NEEDING to have control over their reproductive systems, that need has not changed from when I was younger till now, when my daughter needs the same thing. I just cannot believe that some asinine males in this world want to disrupt, if not totally destroy, the well-being of all women, which ultimately destroys the well-being of our society in general. Why go back to the days when women were treated like mere livestock? THAT is where we are heading if we allow the Republicans/Teabaggers to take away family planning. It SEEMS like the females of that party would not like what their male masters have in store for them. Go figure. Anyway, affordable ways for women to plan their families is one key to escaping a life of poverty and misery. So for me birth control without co-pay means we, as a nation, can take one step closer to being truly independent and free from poverty. Through nonviolent conflict resolution, May Peace prevail on Earth
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Jan Dreyer
Lockport, IL, secretary
I'm past the need for birth control (66yrs old) but I do believe it should be available to all women. The GOP object to access to birth control for all women but doesn't birth control prevent those nasty abortions that they hate so much!!
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Dorothea Murray
, Florida,
When I was a teenager and got my period for the first time it was extremely heavy and irregular. I had it for 5 months straight and I began losing too much blood and got very sick. I had no energy and lost a lot of weight. Taking birth control for a short 4 months stopped my terrible period in its tracks and it became very light and only stayed for a maximum of 7 days a month after that. It saved my life. The power birth control has on the cycle of a womens body is invaluable. My sister is at risk of ovarian cysts and has already fallen victim of them. Taking birth control helped to dissolve the one she had and to prevent any further cysts from developing. My close friend is at risk of infertility due to an imbalance in hormones but taking birth control can easily help her and she is currently taking it to prevent becoming sterile. Birth control can eliminate debilitating cramps, regulate terrible periods and frankly all together save many lives. It is important to see birth control as a medicine through which many women regain their health and not just a contraceptive.
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