Tag Archives: Affordable Care Act

The Supreme Court Ruling on the Affordable Care Act – A Victory for Women

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Editor’s Note: The following piece is a guest blog post from Planned Parenthood Arizona President and CEO Bryan Howard.

The Supreme Court’s ruling upholding the Affordable Care Act marks a critical victory for women’s health, and the health of all Americans: Millions of women and families will have improved access to affordable, quality health care; many previously had inadequate coverage or no coverage at all.

At Planned Parenthood Arizona, we expect how this law will have an unprecedented effect on women’s health. The law guarantees women direct access to ob/gyn providers without referrals, and ends discriminatory practices against women, such as charging women higher premiums and denying coverage for “pre-existing conditions.” And in just six weeks, insured women will gain access to birth control without a co-pay — which will be a tremendous benefit for already stretched family budgets.

Every dollar invested in federal family planning saves taxpayers nearly $4.

Since August 2010, more than 45 million women have already received full coverage for preventive health screenings, including mammograms and Pap tests. With this ruling, 17 million more women will have access to health insurance for the first time, beginning in 2014. And millions more young adults will be able to stay on their parents’ health insurance plans, just like the 3.1 million young adults who have done so since September 2010. Continue reading →

The Short History of Our Right to Contraceptives: Eisenstadt v. Baird 40 Years Later

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Bill Baird

Recent controversy over the Affordable Care Act’s contraception mandate has served as a reminder of how shaky our rights to contraception can be. Although 99 percent of women have used contraception at some point in their lives, access to contraception is still subject to challenges. Section 2713 of the Affordable Care Act mandated that employers’ health plans include coverage for contraceptives without co-pays or deductibles. Critics attacked the law as unfair to religious institutions that oppose the use of contraceptives. Responding to pressure, the Obama White House offered a compromise that shifted the responsibility for coverage from any religious institution opposed to the mandate to the employees’ health insurance.

The right of unmarried Americans to obtain contraceptives was only established 40 years ago.

Our rights to contraception are not only shaky at times, but also not long established. When people think of celebrities like Marlon Wayans, Cameron Diaz, or Maya Rudolph, old age is probably not what comes to mind. However, what they have in common is that they were each born in 1972, the year the U.S. Supreme Court decided the case Eisenstadt v. Baird (405 U.S. 438), a landmark decision that guaranteed unmarried couples the same access to birth control as married couples. March 22 of this year marks the 40th anniversary of this court victory for reproductive rights activist Bill Baird, and for the reproductive freedoms he defended in the U.S. Supreme Court. Continue reading →