Go to Content Go to Navigation Go to Navigation Go to Site Search Homepage

Planned Parenthood Federation of America today celebrated the six-month anniversary of the Affordable Care Act becoming law by highlighting the important benefits to women and patient protections that go into effect today.

“The Affordable Care Act represents the greatest advancement for women’s health care in 45 years,” said Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America. “The new law will cover more women, increase access to reproductive health care, and ease the disproportionate health care burdens on women, who still earn less than men but often face higher health care costs.”

Women have much to gain by the new health care law since they are disproportionately affected by the country’s broken health care system. Women are routinely charged higher premiums than men. Women are often denied coverage for so-called “pre-existing” conditions such as breast cancer or even pregnancy. The Affordable Care Act puts an end to those practices and provides many more benefits, including covering preventive care, such as lifesaving breast cancer screenings and immunizations at no cost. Moreover, the new law allows allowing young people to remain on their parents’ insurance plan until age 26, a boon to young people and their families. 

In honor of this historic anniversary, Planned Parenthood is promoting a short animation video narrated by the actress Julianne Moore to highlight the positive benefits for women in the new health care law. You can watch the video here.

“We are launching our online video so that more women can learn about the new benefits for them in the health care law and understand how it helps them access affordable care, especially lifesaving preventive care such as cancer screenings at no cost. When women understand what this bill does for them, they will be thrilled to know that they are no longer forced to struggle on their own against an often unfair health care system,” said Richards.

In addition, Planned Parenthood is educating its millions of supporters about a crucial provision in the health care law that is still a year away from being decided. This provision would ensure that all FDA-approved contraception would be covered as preventive care, and allow women to fully access the birth control method of their choice without co-pays. 

While Planned Parenthood celebrates the many benefits in the new law, it continues to oppose the abortion provisions in the Affordable Care Act. The new law sets up a complicated system requiring two separate payments from individuals, one for abortion coverage and one for all other health care coverage. Fortunately, the new health care law does not include the complete and total ban on private health insurance coverage for abortion that Planned Parenthood helped successfully defeat. That means health plans will still be able to offer comprehensive insurance coverage for reproductive health care, including abortion, as long as private funds are used to pay for such coverage.

Among the key provisions of the new health law that go into effect today:

-guaranteeing that preventive care, including lifesaving screenings for breast and cervical cancer, and immunizations, are covered at without co-pays

-ending insurance abuses such as denying coverage because of pre-existing conditions for children and dropping individuals after they become sick

-expanding coverage for young adults by allowing them to stay on their parents’ health plan until age 26

-providing 75 million dollars annually for fact-based sex education and teen pregnancy prevention.

###

Planned Parenthood is the nation’s leading provider and advocate of high-quality, affordable health care for women, men, and young people, as well as the nation’s largest provider of sex education. With more than 700 health centers across the country, Planned Parenthood organizations serve all patients with care and compassion, with respect and without judgment. Through health centers, programs in schools and communities, and online resources, Planned Parenthood is a trusted source of reliable health information that allows people to make informed health decisions. We do all this because we care passionately about helping people lead healthier lives.

Source

Planned Parenthood Federation of America

Contact

PPFA Media Relations, 212-261-4433

Published

May 14, 2014

We and our third partners use cookies and other tools to collect, store, monitor, and analyze information about your interaction with our site to improve performance, analyze your use of our sites and assist in our marketing efforts. You may opt out of the use of these cookies and other tools at any time by visiting Cookie Settings. By clicking “Allow All Cookies” you consent to our collection and use of such data, and our Terms of Use. For more information, see our Privacy Notice.

Cookie Settings

We, and our third-party partners, use cookies, pixels, and other tracking technologies to collect, store, monitor, and process certain information about you when you access and use our services, read our emails, or otherwise engage with us. The information collected might relate to you, your preferences, or your device. We use that information to make the site work, analyze performance and traffic on our website, to provide a more personalized web experience, and assist in our marketing efforts. We also share information with our social media, advertising, and analytics partners. You can change your default settings according to your preference. You cannot opt-out of required cookies when utilizing our site; this includes necessary cookies that help our site to function (such as remembering your cookie preference settings). For more information, please see our Privacy Notice.

Marketing

On

We use online advertising to promote our mission and help constituents find our services. Marketing pixels help us measure the success of our campaigns.

User Feedback and Session Replay

On

We use qualitative data from LogRocket, UserZoom, Hotjar and AB Tasty to learn about your user experience and improve our products and services. LogRocket allows us to view session replays.