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EDITORIAL San Francisco Chronicle and SFGate.com | Tuesday, August 2, 2011 | A9
On Federal Health Care Rules :A birth control option
Access to affordable birth control is lacking for too many American women, resulting in a high rate of unintended pregnancies. That is changing. Following a recommendation from the nonprofit, independent Institute of Medicine, the federal government said Monday that it will require insurers to drop deductibles and co-pays for FDA-approved contraception drugs and devices, including “morning after pills.”
Under the Affordable Care Act, the federal government will require health plans to cover preventive services without cost-sharing beginning next year. Preventive services, which keep us healthier and reduce long-term health care costs, are not as well used as they might be because of their cost.
Those already approved include childhood immunizations, screenings for diabetes, high blood pressure and high cholesterol, and smoking-cessation programs. But left undecided in the rollout last year of the Affordable Care Act (what Republicans derisively call “Obamacare”) was what would constitute preventive care for women.
The institute made eight recommendations (see box) and on Monday the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced it was adopting all eight with the amendment that religious institutions that offer health insurance could determine what contraception they would cover for their employees. The department will collect comments on the policy for 60 days.
The move to include contraception is a much-needed bow to reality long missing from the national conversation about women and public health. That discussion has fallen hostage to abortion politics to the point where ideology trumps science, marginalizing the health concerns of most women.
“We are regaining the place we deserve as full participants in policy decisions about our own health,” says Ellen R. Shaffer, director of the Trust Women/Silver Ribbon Campaign in San Francisco.
Policy debates fail to acknowledge these realities:
49 percent of pregnancies are unintended in the United States, as compared with other developed nations (e.g., France, 33 percent; Scotland, 28 percent).
63 percent of Catholics support health insurance coverage for family planning.
Affordable access to birth control reduces abortion and saves lives.
We welcome a government stamp of approval on sciencebacked public policy that improves American families’ health and economic well-being.
Covered preventive services
The federal health care reform law now requires health plans to cover without additional cost: Birth control (religious institutions may determine coverage for their employees) Screening for gestational diabetes Breastfeeding support and counseling Counseling on sexually transmitted diseases Screenings for HPV, a cause of cervical cancer.
Counseling and screening for HIV Well-woman visits Counseling to detect and prevent domestic violence
Source: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services