Health Care

On the second anniversary of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), a reminder: this important law allows me and millions of college students the freedom to make autonomous choices about our future as working Americans.

As is the case for many students nowadays, I’m not guaranteed a job after a graduate. But I can breathe easier knowing that the ACA lets me stay on my parent’s health plan until I work my way up to a paid position with benefits. In the (hopefully short) interim, I can focus on succeeding as a member of the workforce instead of worrying about insurance. Read more »

This week in our weekly roundup: a new documentary on bullying to air this weekend on Cartoon Network, Doonesbury on abortion in Texas, and the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act.

First up, I want to make sure you know that there’s a new documentary on bullying that will air on the Cartoon Network this weekend. Unlike Bully, the documentary that’s set to be released on March 30 (and is currently wrangling with the MPAA to have its rating dropped from R to PG-13), Cartoon Network’s Stop Bullying: Speak Up will air on television – making it very accessible to a wide audience.

The documentary features real stories from kids who’ve been bullied for a variety of reasons, so hopefully it will resonate with kids in school. It also features stories from some well-known people who advocate for ending bullying, including Cartoon Network’s CJ Manigo, Ali Sepasyar and Jackson Rogow, former NBA player Chris Webber, and pro BMX biker Matt Wilhelm. Bullying prevention expert Rosalind Wiseman will also answer questions before, during, and after the documentary airs. Read more »

Last year, states passed a record 92 restrictions on women’s access to reproductive health services. Just last week, lawmakers in Virginia were poised to force women to have an invasive and unnecessary transvaginal ultrasound before having an abortion. And as we speak, the state of Texas is cutting reproductive health care services for hundreds of thousands of low-income women.

What other hurdles will they make women jump over to get the reproductive health care they need?

Watch our new video and tell your leaders: My Health is NOT Up for Debate™! Read more »

In 2014, all health insurance plans in the individual or small group market will have to cover a core set of Essential Health Benefits. This means that when a woman becomes pregnant, she won’t have to worry that her insurance doesn’t cover maternity care. Whether she gets coverage through a small business employer, on the individual market, or the new health insurance marketplaces called exchange – she will know that maternity care and other important health services for women are considered essential.

The components of the Essential Health Benefit package are one of the most important parts of the health care law because they are intended to correct longstanding discriminatory practices that women face in the vast majority of states. The National Women’s Law Center submitted comments on the Essential Health Benefits requirements of the Affordable Care Act to make sure these discriminatory practices are put to an end and the health needs of women are met. Read more »

Last February, the Department of Health and Human Services released an interim final rule stating that student health plans would be treated as individual health insurance plans, meaning that they would have to cover the women’s preventive health services. Let’s translate that out of “legal-ese:” the Department will require student health insurance plans (not student health centers) to cover preventive services for women, such as contraception, screening for sexually transmitted infections, and screening for interpersonal and domestic violence, without co-pays or deductibles. Read more »

A few weeks ago we shared the very exciting news that the Obama administration had held strong and we’d secured no-cost birth control for millions of women through the Affordable Care Act. This was a huge and important step for women’s health and something the National Women’s Law Center has been working towards for over a decade.

But, unfortunately, this decision and final rule has not quieted the opposition. Instead, those opposing the rule are continuing to push back and decry this significant advancement. We’ve posted a number of responses to the negative press and quotes, and we’re continuing to fight back by working with our state partners and submitting letters to the editor to newspapers across the country. Read more »

There has been a lot of press on the recent announcement by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) that it was finalizing the rule requiring coverage of all FDA-approved contraceptives with no co-pays or deductibles, and a lot of it hasn’t been positive.  Most of the focus has been on the fact that the Administration chose not to expand the exemption for certain religious employers.

Take Michael Gerson’s and E.J. Dionne’s recent op-eds, for example. Both of them admonish President Obama for not expanding the religious exemption to entities like religiously-affiliated hospitals and universities, and Gerson says that the rule covers “abortifacients” which is just wrong. He also concludes that the decision on the final rule means that “war on religion is now formally declared.” The way these two see it, it should have been a no-brainer to expand the exemption. But wait just one minute, is this all the rule is about – religious institutions versus the Administration? Is there anything else that maybe we should be considering when analyzing this rule?

Oh right…. the tremendous health benefits of contraception. Oddly and sadly, these health benefits are blatantly ignored in all of the negative commentary (Dionne tips his hat just a bit by vaguely referring to how the rule protects “women’s rights”). So it got me thinking, maybe they just don’t understand the health benefits. Maybe I should take a moment to explain just how critical contraception is as a preventive health service. So Gerson, Dionne, and all of the others who ignore the real issue at stake, please take notes. Read more »

Opponents of the recent contraceptive coverage announcement by the Department of Health & Human Services are trying to twist this major advance on contraception into a fight about abortion. In the Washington Post, Michael Gerson states that the rule requires Catholic-affiliated organizations to provide insurance coverage for "abortifacients." CNN's Belief Blog claims the new rule "forces employers to cover contraception and abortion." While both advance several faulty arguments, it's time to put to rest the claim about abortion. The rule is directly and explicitly limited to FDA-approved contraception. Read more »

Last May, we told you about a recently signed law that would improve women’s access to family planning services in Maryland, and now the Family Planning Works Act has gone into effect!

The Family Planning Works Act expands the Medicaid family planning service program and is expected to give 33,000 low- and moderate-income women free access to a range of services, including birth control, STI testing, and cancer screenings. Read more »

Here’s to a new year.

Arriving at the National Women’s Law Center three months ago, I never anticipated just how sustained and systemic the efforts to dismantle women’s health and reproductive rights had become.  Sure, I had paid attention to the Planned Parenthood defunding fight (which included the “trade” for a ban on DC funding of abortion services and the “this is not meant to be a factual statement” debacle) and had heard about HR 3 and the disgusting “forcible rape” debate. Indeed, it was those events that informed my decision to work on reproductive rights issues full time. But even though I was aware of what was going on, it was only when I became involved with the issues on a daily basis where I gained a whole new perspective on just how far those who oppose reproductive rights are going in order to completely unravel women’s rights. And it got me thinking, if so many bad things can happen in just my three months here, what will 2012 look like?

So in order to be prepared for this year, I decided to give a quick review of my first three months – a recap of the numerous anti-choice measures that cropped up in just the final months of 2011. Because when you lay it all out, you can’t ignore how serious these efforts really are.

In my very first week, the House of Representatives voted on HR 358, which literally would allow women to die at hospitals instead of getting the emergency care they need if it included abortion care. Seriously? Read more »