Affordable Care Act (ACA)

I couldn’t remember the last time I had my cholesterol screened.

That probably isn’t a good thing given that there is a history of heart disease in my family. But I kept coming up with excuses not to get tested – I already have a lot of doctor appointments - I don’t have a primary care provider - I eat healthy - I’m too young to worry about cholesterol.

Then the health care law was passed and, after a few months, all new health plans had to provide certain preventive services with no cost sharing.

Eliminating the small copay for my preventive visit may not have been much, but it meant one less hurdle. I also started thinking about why these services are required to be provided with no cost sharing. Preventive services are important. Read more »

This week is National Women's Health Week — a time for women to remind ourselves to put our health first. Some politicians are determined to put women's health first, too — first on the chopping block.

Opponents of the health care law are dead-set on finding ways to undermine it. And, if they win, our health will be undermined, too. Watch our new video! Then, share it with your friends, family, and co-workers and ask them to join the fight to protect the law.

For generations, women have overcome obstacles, exceeded expectations and fought for equality. Read more »

It’s Women’s Health Week. Time to Celebrate! Along with all of the other goodies we’ve been talking about endlessly for the last two years, the health care law is giving us another reason to celebrate: cold hard cash.

That’s right, cash money. Or more like a check. Let me explain.

The health care law signed by President Obama in 2010 to overhaul our health care system included a provision to require insurance companies to spend more of our premiums on our care, not on administrative costs or profits. It is called the Medical Loss Ratio (MLR) and it is a federal requirement that insurance companies must spend 80-85% of premiums on health care. When I talk about this with women across the country, one of the first things they say is something along the lines of, “It’s about time!” (That that seems a pretty normal requirement and one that should have been in place a long time ago.) Before the health care law, many insurance companies spent excessive amounts of our premium dollars on administrative costs and profits, including executive salaries, overhead, and marketing—and not on our health care. Read more »

If I could give my mom any Mother’s Day gift, I’d reassure her that the health care law is safe. Because, like millions of Americans, my mom has a "pre-existing condition" that her insurance won't cover. And last month, she was forced to pay $14,000 out-of-pocket for cataract surgery. She’d hoped to wait until 2014, when the health care law is fully implemented and pre-existing condition exclusions are banned, but her vision was declining too quickly to keep putting it off.

Unfortunately for the millions of Americans who desperately need the health care law, those who oppose the law for political reasons have brutally slandered it—on the news, in Congress, even in the highest court in the land. And they’ve talked so loudly and adamantly that the law’s significance—what we truly stand to lose—has largely been lost in the debate. Read more »

This blog post is a part of NWLC’s Mother’s Day 2012 blog series. For all our Mother’s Day posts, please click here.

My daughter was a champion breast-feeder. (These days she tries, and often fails, to be a champion rester at pre-kindergarden.) While there were a few bumps in the road – a slow start, a clogged duct, some supply issues as we closed in on the 12-month mark – breastfeeding was one of the easier things in her first year of life.

Nevertheless, I estimate that I spent over $700 on breastfeeding that year. It all adds up – a breast pump, some help from lactation consultants, renting a hospital-grade rental pump to help maintain supply those last few months of pumping at work – even for a mom-baby pair that didn’t experience many problems.

$700 is a lot of money, but it didn’t feel like such a big financial bite after I spoke to my friend Meaghan. Meaghan has spent exactly $761.90 in the first four weeks of her younger daughter’s life. That includes four visits with lactation consultants, renting a hospital-grade pump, pump parts and supplies, and supplements to help with thrush and clogged ducts. Her newborn has trouble latching, so Meaghan has been pumping and then bottle-feeding, and seeking a lot of help Read more »

This blog post is a part of NWLC’s Mother’s Day 2012 blog series. For all our Mother’s Day posts, please click here.

The new health care law does some amazing things for mothers. Before you even become a mom, the health care law will make sure women have affordable health insurance. Once you have that coverage and are thinking about having children, the health care law ensures you have access to preventive services at no additional out of pocket costs to you. These preventive services will provide an opportunity to screen for conditions and prepare yourself for pregnancy. Once you are pregnant—congratulations!—the health care law ensures you will have prenatal and maternity care. (Before the health care law, insurance companies could drop people when they got sick; and most insurance coverage in bought in the individual market did not include maternity care. What a shame!).

The health care law will make sure that, during your pregnancy you can receive the care you need to stay healthy. (In fact, the health care law will require screening for gestational diabetes for high risk mothers.) Read more »

This blog post is a part of NWLC’s Mother’s Day 2012 blog series. For all our Mother’s Day posts, please click here.

Many of my friends will celebrate their first Mother’s Day being a mom this year. Others have recently expanded their families or have a first child on the way.

I’m happy that all these kids were born after the health care law was passed – because that means my friends can be secure that their kids will have access to health care. That includes my friend Robyn, whose son Jax had to have heart surgery when he was only three months old. Without the health care law, Robyn would have to worry about Jax hitting a lifetime limit on his insurance or being denied coverage for having a pre-existing condition.

The health care law also improves the health of women – like my friend Robyn and all my friends who are new moms.

Preventive Care with No Cost Sharing for New and Expecting Moms

All new health plans are already providing preventive services – such as cancer, diabetes and hypertension screenings – with no cost sharing. Starting this August, the list of preventive services will expand to cover women’s health services including many services important to expecting and new moms. These services include:

• Prenatal Care: Testing for gestational diabetes without cost sharing and a well-woman visit including prenatal care means that expecting moms will know what steps they need to take to have a healthy pregnancy.
• Breastfeeding Support and Supplies: New moms will have access to lactation counseling and rental of breastfeeding supplies without copays or deductibles. In addition to the preventive services, employers are now required to provide a clean space—that is not a bathroom—for new moms to pump.
• Contraceptive Coverage: The full range of FDA-approved contraceptive coverage, including birth control pills, rings, implants, tubal ligation and more will be provided by plans without cost sharing. This is important to new moms because birth control helps women plan pregnancies so moms can access preconception and prenatal care and space pregnancies to help have a healthy baby.

Read more »

Take Action: Tell Your Representative to Vote NO

Protect millions of women and families from the harsh spending cuts the House is voting on this week.

They just never stop.

Earlier this year, the House of Representatives passed the budget blueprint introduced by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI). The Ryan budget calls for drastic cuts in programs that low-income women and their families depend on to meet their basic needs — and trillions of dollars in additional tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans and corporations.

This week, the House will vote on a bill to implement the Ryan budget by slashing Medicaid, Food Stamps (SNAP), child care, and more, and dismantling the Affordable Care Act.

Please contact your Representative TODAY and tell him or her to vote against these devastating cuts!

The bill the House is scheduled to vote on this Thursday, H.R. 4966, would:

• Let states reduce eligibility standards for Medicaid, which women disproportionately rely on for health care coverage, and for the Children's Health Insurance Program.
• Dismantle the Affordable Care Act, by eliminating funding for state health exchanges and community-level preventive and public health initiatives, and by reducing access to affordable health insurance coverage by discouraging the use of premium tax credits.
• Terminate the Social Services Block Grant, which gives billions of dollars to states to support seniors and children, including critical funding for child care assistance.
• Cut Food Stamp (SNAP) benefits, reducing monthly benefits almost immediately for about 44 million people and denying benefits altogether for as many as 2 million more.
• Eliminate eligibility for the refundable Child Tax Credit for many immigrant families.

On Sunday, Speaker Boehner defended the House of Representatives’ recent vote to eliminate the Prevention and Public Health Trust Fund to cover the cost of maintaining today’s low interest rates for student loans. Arguing that the Obama Administration and women’s health advocates have created a controversy out of whole cloth, the Speaker said, “I’ll guarantee you that they’ve not spent a dime of this fund dealing with anything to do with women’s health.”

Perhaps the Speaker is not aware that the top three causes of death among American women are heart disease, cancer and stroke. Or that the Prevention and Public Health Trust Fund – a provision of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) that ensures adequate funding for preventive health initiatives – already helps communities use evidence-based programs that reduce chronic disease and prevent heart attacks, cancer, and stroke, among other conditions. Other Prevention Fund initiatives fund efforts to improve nutrition and increase physical activity to reduce obesity-related conditions, such as diabetes, and expand immunization services, including immunization against influence and pneumonia – numbers seven and eight, respectively among the leading causes of death among women. Finally, Prevention Fund investments include improving detection of and early intervention in Alzheimer’s Disease, which occupies position number five on the top-ten list. Read more »

Apparently we have to keep fighting for basic health care. On Friday the Colorado state legislature took up a measure that would have a lasting impact on women’s access to health services, such as contraception.

The Colorado Senate Memorial 12-003 calls upon Congress to enact the Respect for the Rights of Conscience Act of 2011. This extreme bill introduced in Congress gives virtually limitless and unprecedented license to any employer or insurance plan, religious or not, to exclude coverage of any health service, no matter how essential, as required by the federal health care law.

In fact, this legislation was recently repackaged as the Blunt Amendment and attached to a routine transportation bill. Fortunately, this extreme measure was voted down by the U.S. Senate. As an aside, one of the Republican Senators who voted for the Blunt Amendment—Senator Murkowski—realized, after the vote, the extreme nature of the Blunt Amendment and now says she regrets her vote. Read more »