Feminist Majority: Affordable Care Act

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Tuesday, March 20, 2012

HERvotes Blog Carnival: What Health-Care Reform Means to Women

By Cindy Pearson, co-founder of Raising Women’s Voices for the Health Care We Need

For the tenth #HERvotes blog carnival, we’re celebrating the second anniversary of the new health-reform law, the Affordable Care Act, or ACA.

Why are women so excited about the ACA? Well, for a start, the law has already started removing barriers to health care and improving services for millions of women and our families, helping us access the care we need to stay healthy.

This week’s #HERvotes blog carnival is going to raise women’s voices all across the country. We will tell our stories of how the Affordable Care Act has helped us, what is still wrong with our health care system and what we’re doing to make a difference. We will express our anger about the insurance company abuses–such as charging us more than men for our health insurance–that will continue until the ACA is fully implemented. And perhaps most importantly, we’ll share why this important advance for women should be upheld by the Supreme Court when it takes up the Affordable Care Act next week.

Please join us in lifting our voices–because we all have something to gain from the Affordable Care Act.

You can participate by telling your own story and by sharing the posts below on Facebook, Twitter (using the hashtag #HERvotes) and other social media.

#HERvotes, a multi-organization campaign launched in August 2011, advocates women using our voices and votes to stop the attacks on the women’s movement’s major advances, many of which are at risk in the next election.

Two Years Later, Reflections on the Landmark Health Care Law

by Miri Cypers, JWI Senior Policy and Advocacy Specialist

Two years ago this week, Congress voted in support of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, the landmark health care reform bill, and sent the legislation to President Obama’s desk to sign. This came after months of heated debate in Washington DC and throughout the nation which showcased the complex and often vitriolic nature of the political landscape in the United States. Ultimately, the passage of this historic bill affirmed the right of every American to quality, affordable health coverage and served as an especially important victory for women and their families.
So what gains has the Affordable Care Act made since its passage two years ago? Now, over 20 million women across the U.S. have received preventive health care services, from mammograms to colonoscopies, without co-pays. Soon, this coverage will include other critical preventive health care services, like well-women visits, contraception, and domestic violence screenings- all available without additional costs to women. Now, 2.5 million young adults are insured because of the health care law which allows them to stay on their parents’ insurance plan until the age of 26. Now, nearly 500,000 Americans who were denied coverage have insurance. The list goes on and on.
Women are already benefitting from the ACA and these positive trends will only continue. As women and as activists, we must continue to protect this historic law by dispelling myths and staying informed and active advocates. The health care law is a tremendous achievement for women and their families and despite strong opposition, we will not turn back now.

Cross-posted with Jewish Women International

Part of the #HERvotes blog carnival.

Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Sad Reality: New President, Same Fight

by Stephanie Drahan, National Women’s Law Center

In 2008 when then Senator Barack Obama was still campaigning for the presidency and there were notions that the Bush administration would offer a parting shot to women’s groups and the reproductive health community, Obama’s take on the proposed regulation to expand religious restrictions was clear –

“We need to restore integrity to our public health programs, not create backdoor efforts to weaken them. I am committed to ensuring that the health and reproductive rights of women are protected.”

But now, here we are three years later, and under President Obama, we are still having a very similar fight.

In August, we secured a huge victory when a set of preventive health services were adopted by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to be covered by all new health insurance plans without co-payments included contraception. But even then, we were disappointed by the inclusion of an exemption for certain religious employers. Our supporters helped us send nearly 15,000 messages to HHS expressing our opposition to the refusal language included in this groundbreaking rule.

But religious institutions are pressuring, President to expand the refusal language to exclude a broader range of instituions. Before Thanksgiving, we gathered nearly 10,000 messages from our supporters opposing both the original exemption and any expansion of it.

But that may not be enough! We need to continue to keep the pressure on. Please make sure your friends, family, peers, and colleagues know that the President is under pressure to the refusal language and that women may lose the coverage they gained this summer and encourage them to get involved. You can call the White House directly 1-888-534-5471 to register your opposition or send the President an email.

If the current language is expanded, more than a million women may lose coverage for birth control that we fought so hard for. We can’t let that happen. Tell President Obama that all women need access to affordable birth control!

To learn more about why denying contraceptives harms women, check out our factsheet.

Cross-posted with the National Women's Law Center

Part of the #HERvotes blog carnival.

Fight Against an Expanded Religious Exemption that Denies Birth Control Coverage

by Dren Asselmeier, Center for Inquiry on Campus

I have my own opinions about birth control and whether it should be made available at no cost to women who want to have control over their reproduction, but I think that there is something that we can do to solve this issue that is more decisive than weighing our biased and subjective opinions. We need to look to unbiased sources. It is imperative that we turn to science and critical thought in order to study and truly understand the implications of the decision we are going to make.

Why do Catholic bishops have any say in what we do as a matter of public health? Are they doctors? Have they studied society in order to understand what happens when birth control is outlawed or available only at prohibitive costs to some women? Do they think that the rights of women, and all people, are more important than faith? I can not possibly speak for all Catholic bishops; in fact, you might be surprised to find out that I have never met one. Regardless, it is very unlikely that in his free time any Catholic bishop has decided to study science, sociology, or public health to an academic and professional level at which other experts in such fields could consider the bishop an authority on those topics. Bishops may have studied some things outside of faith and may be academically knowledgeable people, but I am going to assume that being a bishop means studying and regarding faith and religious doctrine above every other area of study.

Because their expertise is in faith and understanding of religious texts, I think that bishops should have absolute say over church doctrine. If they think that everyone should wear those cool hats to church and high-five as they eat crackers, that’s perfectly fine and well within their right as bishops (I think). No philosophy or religion or worldview, however, has the right to deny people medicine, to be allowed to hurt others, to repress women, or to take away the rights that are mandated by our government. I think that a religious exemption in order to avoid providing mandated health care is unacceptable because we do not have a religious government. We have to trust in professionals who study actual outcomes and efficacy of social programs to make important societal decisions. We have to look to what is best for society and not what is best according to one religion that bases its knowledge on a creed written several hundred years ago. Plus, if we allow for religious organizations to deny some healthcare to their employees because it upsets their religious views, then where is the line drawn? Is it okay for religious organizations to deny some rights but not others?

I don’t want to spend too much time on hypothetical situations, but what if we allowed other religious exemptions, like honor killings? What if we decided that it was okay for Mormon organizations to not provide healthcare to black people because of the Curse of Cain Doctrine, which some have interpreted to mean that black people are cursed? What if we determined that it was okay for a man to kill his son for being disobedient, as the Bible states he should (Deuteronomy 21:18–21)? We, as a society, do not allow religious conviction to excuse murder, rape, theft, oppression, or the denial of rights to our citizens where there are laws to criminalize these things. No matter how much someone thinks that he or she is acting justly based on faith, that individual is not allowed to infringe on the rights of others. Okay, why not? Well, we have laws that exist for all people. Everyone is subject to laws and to the judicial system no matter what they believe. We have a secular government which means that no one religion is allowed to exercise its rules over anyone else if those rules contradict our laws. Period. Being an American means you have rights no matter what religion you are, and the case of basic health care should be no exception.

If the Catholic bishops said that they have proof of no-cost birth control hurting society in a real, tangible, measurable way that can be observed by science, then I think that we, as responsible thinkers and people who care about the wellbeing of our society, would have to ask scientists and scholars to look at more data and use universal systems of gaining knowledge in order to come to a conclusion. Scientific fields such as sociology and public health have already considered the question of whether easy access to birth control causes more pregnancies, more unwanted children, and other outcomes that most of us would agree are bad for society. Look for news sources that state information from studies and not from religious organizations whose motives are to make people live according to a particular faith:

“About half of all pregnancies in Colorado and across the country are unplanned or unwanted, and many of those result in abortion, according to government reports.” From Health Policy Solutions

“Two new studies taking different methodological approaches arrive at the same conclusion: Unintended pregnancy costs U.S. taxpayers roughly $11 billion each year. Both estimates are conservative in that they are limited to public insurance costs for pregnancy and first-year infant care, and both studies conclude that the potential public savings from reducing unintended pregnancy in the United States would be huge. A related new study provides first-ever estimates of unintended pregnancy for each state, and a starting point for future efforts to monitor states’ progress toward reducing unintended pregnancy.” “Contraceptive use is critical to couples’ ability to reconcile their sexual lives and their childbearing goals.” From a study by the Guttmacher Institute; the second from another study by the Guttmacher Institute

“Despite the advances that have been made in contraception over the past fifty years, an estimated 150 million women worldwide cannot get the birth control they desire. In many parts of the world most young women become mothers before they are 20 years old. A woman who bears children at a younger age tends to have more children over all, is less able to care for them, and is more likely to suffer ill health.” From the Our Bodies Ourselves health resource center (it has a list of sources here)

“Laws limiting teenagers’ access to contraceptive services and information fail to reduce sexual activity and increase the risk of unintended pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), according to two studies” From The Alan Guttmacher Institute

I don’t want to only cite the sources that reinforce my opinion because that would go against my original premise of counting on authorities to help us make important decisions, but I did not find any information stating that greater access to birth control would have negative consequences for the United States. There may be other studies that I don’t know about; furthermore, many of the studies I did find relate to abstinence-only education, or birth control statistics for specific groups and not the broader population (but they are also positive). The point is that it is not my decision to make, nor should it be a decision made by the Catholic bishops or any other member of clergy or any average layperson. Matters of medicine and public health need to be handled by doctors, scientists, and other professionals whose only goals are to make our society as prosperous, happy, safe, and healthy as it can be.

The Center for Inquiry released an alert asking supporters to urge President Obama to keep religion our of reproductive health care regulations. Read that alert and see how to get your voice to President Obama here.

To read other blog posts about the proposed expansion to the religious exemption for birth control coverage, visit the HERvotes blog carnival page or check #HERvotes on Twitter. Go to the National Women’s Law Center to learn more about important women’s issues.

Cross-posted with Center for Inquiry on Campus

Part of the #HERvotes blog carnival.

Make the Promise of Preventative Care in the ACA Real for All Women

by The Wisconsin Alliance for Women’s Health

Back in August we were celebrating a win for women’s health – the recognition that contraception is prevention. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) required health insurers (for all new plans after August 1, 2012) to cover a number of women’s preventive health care services, including the full range of FDA-approved contraception, with no out-of-pocket costs, which is a huge step forward for fairness and improved health outcomes for women and their families. We blogged on that victory here.

There was one glitch with this rule when HHS approved it, the Secretary took comments regarding a religious employer exemption for the contraceptive coverage provision of the rule. The Wisconsin Alliance for Women’s health responded strongly to this proposal, stating that no woman should be denied health care coverage because of the religious views of her employer. We emphasized that there is strong medical and public health consensus that contraceptive services are a critical part of women’s preventative care and that denying this benefit to some women because of their employer would fail to make real the promise of the Affordable Care Act for all women.

Now this religious employer exemption is being held up in the White House. Catholic Bishops are using their influence to try to expand the religious employer exemption in the rule. This cannot happen.

Wisconsin women have seen recent strides towards providing comprehensive reproductive health care and access to contraception in our state. In 2010, we became one of only 28 states to require health insurance plans that cover prescription drugs to include contraception.[1] The Wisconsin law does not include any religious employer refusal clause. The HHS rule is, in fact, more limited in that way than the current Wisconsin law. For that reason, it is critical that the Federal Government does not lead Wisconsin backwards. Our current Governor included a provision repealing contraceptive equity in the state budget, and though it was removed due to its non-fiscal nature, it could be brought up later this legislative session. We need a strong federal rule – saying that contraception is prevention for all women.

Call (202-559-1164) or email the White House today, to tell them that all women deserve access to affordable, comprehensive, preventative care.

This is the ACA provision most likely to impact women’s lives, and two thirds of Americans support it. Tell the President not to weaken this important rule because of the pressure of a few, because nearly all sexually active women, regardless of their religious beliefs, use contraception at some point in their lives.

Cross-posted with the Wisconsin Alliance for Women's Health

art of the #HERvotes blog carnival.

Check out the action petitions:

Catholics for Choice

National Women’s Law Center

Feminist Majority Foundation

Planned Parenthood Federation of America

NARAL Pro-Choice America

Physicians for Reproductive Choice and Health

National Council of Jewish Women

Tuesday, October 11, 2011

Public Funding of Family Planning is Essential, Even Under Health Reform

This week, as we celebrate the first anniversary of the Affordable Care Act, which promises to bring great benefits to women in this country, new threats to women’s health care have emerged. Last month the House of Representatives voted to eliminate federal funding of Planned Parenthood and cut entirely the Title X program, which supports family planning clinics across the country. Though the Senate has since rejected this proposal, House Republicans have vowed to continue to push for these cuts.

Many have spoken out about the harm this would have on low-income women, who rely on Planned Parenthoods and other family planning clinics for important preventive care like contraception and cancer screenings. Even in Massachusetts, where 98 percent of residents have health insurance due to groundbreaking state health reform, such cuts would be devastating.

Massachusetts has a robust network of family planning clinics, Planned Parenthood among them, which offer contraceptive services and counseling, sexually transmitted infection testing and treatment, and cervical and breast cancer screening on a sliding fee scale. In the wake of Massachusetts reform, family planning clinics continue to play a role in providing services to the Commonwealth’s most vulnerable residents.

In 2008, a year after Massachusetts’ health reform law took effect, Ibis Reproductive Health and the Massachusetts Department of Health Family Planning Program undertook research to explore the impact of reform on low-income women’s access to contraception. We conducted a survey and interviews with family planning providers and also held focus groups with English- and Spanish-speaking low-income women.

We found that health reform has provided a number of benefits to women and many women expressed relief over finally having insurance.

But our research also uncovered new barriers. Information about insurance plans and what is covered is confusing and difficult to navigate. For women new to insurance, having to get a prescription for contraception filled at a pharmacy instead of getting one’s method onsite at the clinic required education and support. Many women struggled to keep up with the numerous paperwork requirements to prove eligibility for state-subsidized plans and were pushed on and off insurance plans as a result, which likely affected their ability to consistently stay on contraception.

Providers also worried that teenagers on their parents’ insurance would not seek out family planning services for fear of their parents’ finding out.

Immigrant women also reported experiencing barriers to health care. Many do not qualify for subsidized insurance plans under reform and some have stopped seeking health care because they are afraid of being fined or deported if authorities find out they are undocumented and uninsured.

Our research also showed that family planning providers—in addition to their traditional role of providing sexual and reproductive health care—were taking on the challenge of addressing barriers for these populations most in need. Family planning clinic staff helped women enroll in insurance plans, determined their eligibility for state-subsidized plans, and spent time helping women decipher what their plans cover.

Family planning clinics also addressed patients’ other primary health care needs, including in some cases helping managing chronic conditions like diabetes and mental illness. They have also been a safety net for the uninsured and underinsured—they will never turn anyone away.

When Massachusetts health reform was first in effect, the Commonwealth made enrollment grants to health care agencies to help them get their clients signed up for health insurance. In spite of dramatic reductions to those grants, and after massive cuts to the state budget following the recession, family planning providers continue to serve women above and beyond what they have the resources to do.

Federal funds from the Title X program and state funds support Massachusetts’ 11 family planning agencies, which include 81 clinics located across the Commonwealth. If Congress succeeds in eliminating funding for Title X, it will succeed in eliminating subsidized services for the women who need them most. It will also lead to increased costs in Massachusetts and other states, because investments in family planning save dollars. We can hardly afford to stop funding cost-saving programs in the current economic environment.

The major goal of health reform—both in Massachusetts and nationally—is to achieve universal health care coverage. Even with the great strides Massachusetts has made, we still need a safety net. Continued support for Title X and family planning providers, including Planned Parenthood, supports the goals of health reform and ensures access to critical preventive health services for the most vulnerable women.

This blog is part of the #HERvotes blog carnival. Read more HERvotes posts by the Feminist Majority and other women’s groups.

The Affordable Care Act and Women

By Desiree Hoffman
YWCA USA Director of Advocacy and Policy

March 23, 2011, marked the first anniversary of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Yet polls show that less than 47% of Americans know how it affects them.¹ Lack of understanding was highest among low-income households and the uninsured. When asked, “Do you feel you have enough information about the health reform law to understand how it will impact you personally?,” 61 percent of households with incomes less than $40,000 per year said “no;” 60 percent of uninsured individuals responded “no.”

Today, many households are struggling in a difficult economy and rightly feel a sense of disconnection between their own lives and politics. It isn’t surprising that many people don’t feel they have enough information about the ACA, let alone feel they have accurate information.

Recently I had the chance to speak to a room full of seniors and retirees about the ACA. What stood out to me was the audience knew more about how the law protected their grandchildren than they did about how ACA helps them. Under the new law, the audience knew that insurers could no longer discriminate based on a child’s preexisting condition, and that dependent children under the age of 26 could remain on their parent’s health care plans. What the mostly female audience did not know, however, was that they would no longer be charged co-pays for preventative services such as mammograms, cervical cancer screenings, immunizations, and annual physical exams.

Retirees and seniors were not aware that the ACA:

provides free mammograms every one to two years for women aged 40 and above, and patients identified as high-risk candidates for breast cancer can receive consultation on chemoprevention, and genetic evaluation;

makes it illegal for insurers to deny coverage to women based on pre-existing conditions, including cesarean sections, breast cancer, chronic conditions like high blood pressure or diabetes and even domestic violence; and

ensures that low-income and moderate-income women and families are able to afford health care by expanding Medicaid and offering new affordability credits to families — between 133 percent to 400 percent of the federal poverty level (Example: The range is between $29,328 to $88,000 for a family of four based on 2009 HHS guidelines) — to help pay for health care premiums.

Most shocking to me was that the audience of primarily women had no idea that, before ACA, insurers refused to cover survivors of domestic violence. Before the law, insurers defined domestic violence as a pre-existing condition since many victims often had higher utilization rates of the emergency room and, thus, were viewed as “high risk” or more costly to insure, providing the basis for refusal of health care coverage at all. Under ACA, an insurance company can no longer discriminate against — and re-victimize — a domestic violence survivor by denying health insurance coverage.

From the provisions that help children and grandchildren, to the measures that address breast cancer and help domestic violence survivors obtain health care insurance, the ACA clearly makes healthcare more affordable for women and their families. While the affordability credits do not kick- in until 2014, they are important components of the law that help low and moderate income families. People are struggling with rising healthcare costs and stagnant wages in an economy where unemployment remains high; expanding Medicaid and providing subsidies to help pay for health care premiums will help tremendously.

Despite these benefits, there are intensifying efforts to repeal or weaken the ACA. At the beginning of the 112^th Congress, bills were introduced to repeal the entire law, but they did not muster enough votes to pass. Now, there is a flurry of amendments to halt agencies from fully implementing key provisions of the ACA, and bills to restrict comprehensive reproductive health care services.

This month is declared both national Breast Cancer Awareness Month and Domestic Violence Awareness Month. Knowing the important benefits that ACA means for breast cancer prevention and treatment and for survivors of domestic violence, there is no better way to commemorate this month than by speaking out in support of the ACA to your Senators and Representative or by educating yourself and your loved ones on the benefits of the new law.

To learn more about the new law visit:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/healthreform/relief-for-americans-and-businesses#healthcare-menu

This blog is part of the #HERvotes blog carnival. Read more HERvotes posts by the Feminist Majority and other women’s groups.

Feminist Majority

Tuesday, March 20, 2012

HERvotes Blog Carnival: What Health-Care Reform Means to Women

Two Years Later, Reflections on the Landmark Health Care Law

Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Sad Reality: New President, Same Fight

Fight Against an Expanded Religious Exemption that Denies Birth Control Coverage

Make the Promise of Preventative Care in the ACA Real for All Women

Tuesday, October 11, 2011

Public Funding of Family Planning is Essential, Even Under Health Reform

The Affordable Care Act and Women

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