"[Planned Parenthood] could reap a financial windfall, if ‘ObamaCare’ includes contraceptive services with mandated preventive care for women."UPDATE 7/20/11: Raise Health Insurance Rates, White House Plans: Birth Control
-- From "Millions flow to states for contraceptive education" by Joe Dejka, Omaha World-Herald staff writer 1/30/11
A policy change in Washington means millions of dollars heading to the states for contraception education.
Prior to adoption of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act [ObamaCare], the federal government restricted certain grants to abstinence-only education.
The fund marks a break from the abstinence-only education policies of the Clinton and Bush administrations, begun in 1997 and targeted for programs with the exclusive purpose of teaching the social, psychological and health gains to be realized by abstaining from sexual activity.
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From "Medicaid expands birth control access" by Sarah Kliff, Politico 1/24/11
For states participating in the new option, CMS [Center for Medicaid & Medicare Services] will continue to reimburse at a 90 percent matching rate for approved family-planning services. Services generally include birth control as well as drugs to prevent the transmission of sexually transmitted infections.
While states vary in what specific family-planning services they provide under the waiver, a 2009 survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation found that the majority paid for birth control.
The Medicaid provision isn’t the only part of health reform that could lead to greater availability of contraceptives. The law requires that insurers cover preventive health care for women without requiring a copay, a provision that reproductive health groups have aggressively lobbied ought to include contraceptives.
Planned Parenthood launched an extensive campaign, Birth Control Matters, to defend contraceptives as preventive health care. Aside from the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, which generally opposes the use of birth control, the issue has gotten little pushback.
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From "Defund Planned Parenthood?" by Joan Frawley Desmond, National Catholic Register 1/31/11
A push to include contraceptive services and sterilizations in mandated preventive care for women has deepened fears that the new health-care law will threaten conscience rights of Catholic employers and healthcare professionals.
Federal regulators must determine whether contraceptive services will be included in mandated preventive services for women by August, when the list of mandated services will be issued.
. . . Deirdre McQuade, spokeswoman for the Secretariat for Pro-Life Activities of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops [said,] “. . . if contraception is included, it would include all the methods approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), including ‘ella,’ a drug capable of dislodging an implanted embryo, which by anyone’s view is an abortion.”
Under the new Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act [ObamaCare], all health insurers will be required to pay for preventive services that the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recommends. Some experts predict that the advent of free contraception will be a financial windfall for family-planning providers like Planned Parenthood.
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