Beginning this week, health insurance plans (new and renewing) are now required to offer a comprehensive set of women's preventative health services, free of copays or deductibles, thanks to a portion of the Affordable Care Act taking effect. Preventative care is largely touted as one of the most important components of healthcare, one which results in dramatic shifts towards healthier outcomes. Up until yesterday, it also was something that all-too-often fell by the wayside because of skyrocketing healthcare costs. According to the Commonwealth Fund, over half of women in this country have delayed preventative care because of the price tag. Now, about 47 million women will have affordable access to vital women's health services.
While the most highly-publicized aspect of this preventative care requirement has been the requirement for birth control to be covered by health insurance providers, the scope of preventative care that will now be covered is not limited to that. Plans now also will cover domestic violence screening and counseling, breastfeeding support and supplies, HPV testing, STI/HIV screening and counseling, gestational diabetes screenings, and annual well-woman visits. Finally, the coverage of preventative services for American women will be similar to the list of services covered for member of Congress.
Although the birth control requirement is still being hashed out in the courts, it has the potential to decrease the fact that the US has one of the highest rates of unwanted pregnancies in the world. Furthermore, birth control has been shown to have the added benefits of reducing the risk of certain cancers, as well as acting as protection against osteoporosis. This hasn't stopped some companies from suing the government in order to avoid offering this coverage to their employees, though. Federal courts have largely declined to hear these cases. This week, though, a federal court in Colorado put a temporary halt on the implementation of the contraception coverage rule, with respect to one company, the plaintiff. The owners of the for-profit company, Hercules Industries, claimed that their religious liberty was violated when they were required to cover birth control. The court's acceptance of this argument is dangerous--an employee's health shouldn't be subject to the religious convictions of their employer. Thankfully, the federal court in Colorado appears to be in the minority--the high courts of California and New York have rejected these same arguments.
Women still have more to look forward to--in 2014, it will be illegal to charge women more for health insurance simply because they're women. This will put an end to the status quo, where insurers have charged women up to 50%, even though these plans often didn't cover basic women's health needs, like maternity care. This systemic discrimination has been found to cost women up to $1 billion annually.
All people deserve access to affordable health care that doesn't discriminate against them simply because of their gender, and now we finally have laws to actually enforce that ideal.
Caitlin Lowell is a summer intern for the ACLU of Maine. She is a rising sophomore at Columbia who is pursuing a double major in political science and American studies.
