If we can set aside the political wrangling and focus on the benefits of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), what becomes obvious is its critically important impact on women’s health.
The fact is: While women are the primary coordinators of health care for families and comprise the majority of U.S. health-care workers, they also put their own health-care needs behind those of their children. Cost is too often the reason.
A 2009 Commonwealth Fund study found that more than half of women delayed or avoided preventive care because of cost. And access to affordable health care has been particularly difficult for low-income women and families.
Unfortunately, many chronic diseases responsible for 7 in 10 deaths each year are often preventable and account for 75 percent of the nation’s health-care spending. The unintended consequence is an increase in health-care costs for everyone else.
The Affordable Care Act changes this dynamic.
Prevention is now affordable for all Americans because health plans are required to cover recommended preventive services without cost sharing. For women, this means coverage for, among other services, mammograms; screening for cervical cancer; well-woman visits; breastfeeding support, supplies and counseling; contraceptive methods and counseling; and screening and counseling for interpersonal and domestic violence.
Going forward, the Supreme Court ruling that upheld the ACA ensures that by 2014 insurance plans can no longer charge women more than men for insurance premiums based on sex or gender or deny coverage for men and women with pre-existing conditions. The ruling also kept in place essential consumer protections related specifically to family planning and sexual health.
The ACA also requires insurance plans to contract with safety-net providers, including Title X providers like the Arizona Family Health Partnership which, in 2011, served more than 40,000 mostly low-income women, men and teens through statewide partnerships with community-based health clinics.
If fully implemented, the ACA could expand health-care coverage to 32 million Americans by 2014.
We know challenges to the ACA will continue. Some state leaders have already made clear their intention to reject the option to expand Medicaid coverage to millions of poor and low-income individuals.
We also know that those state officials will be ignoring strong scientific research supporting the health – and financial – benefits of preventive services. They’ll also be shoving aside credible data showing that expanding publicly funded medical care, especially family planning services, actually saves federal and state governments billions of dollars each year and strengthens the public health safety net.
Research shows that every dollar of public funding for contraceptive and preventive services saves $3.74 in costs for prenatal, pregnancy-related and medical care for newborns, or $3.4 billion that otherwise would have been borne by Medicaid.
With the ACA now the law of the land, policy makers must understand the critical importance of ensuring and promoting the health and well-being of millions of Americans.
After all, isn’t a healthy America a better, more productive and stronger America?
Brenda “Bré” Thomas is CEO of the Arizona Family Health Partnership a Title X-funded 501(c)3 nonprofit agency, providing reproductive health care and education to all women, men and teens in Arizona through a network of health clinics across the state. For more information, visit www.arizonafamilyhealth.org.
chatmandu002 posted at 8:43 am on Sat, Aug 11, 2012.
Bre,
Yes indeed the new ACA will provide a lot of services to all members of a family including women with a huge tax increase that grows and grows. After all of the "other people's" money runs out what are we going to do?
Cerulean posted at 12:09 pm on Sat, Aug 11, 2012.
chatmandu, Health care costs were on an unsustainable projection long before President Obama was elected to work on a solution. Costs were doubling, tripling and becoming more and more unaffordable years before President Obama came to work.
I believe there is more that must be done to reduce cost, however our current representatives in the House are least interested in that task.
Good column Bre', Thank you
Leon Ceniceros posted at 1:00 pm on Sat, Aug 11, 2012.
Thank you for your column on Marxist-Leninist Socialism but when did "Tax-Payer supported Health Care" become protected by the United States Bill of Rights ???
Why is "women's health care" more important than "men's health care" ???
I don't see anyone stepping up to the plate and helping me with my "dental needs".
I don't see "mamagrams and abortions" listed anywhere in the Constitution or the Bill of Rights or even the Declaration of Independence.
Who says that "women's needs" are higher on the peeking order than "men's needs" ???
How about some of those Billions and Billions of Tax-Payer dollars and donations for ........."MALE PROSTATE CANCER" ????
Enough with the .......SEXISM...!!!!
Leon Ceniceros posted at 1:13 pm on Sat, Aug 11, 2012.
P.S...........Male workers earn more that .....$162.00....per week than women.
So........."Men"....should really be getting more ..."tax-payer" funded Health Benefits than "Women".....not the other way around.
wdgnas posted at 6:39 am on Sun, Aug 12, 2012.
leon: i don't see "viagra" listed anywhere in the Constitution or the Bill of Rights or even the Declaration of Independence.
VofReason posted at 12:47 pm on Mon, Aug 13, 2012.
I don't think anyone agrues that preventative care is not a good thing. Seriously though, if this was such a great idea, why did it have to be shoved down everyones throat. The only way it passed is by back room deals that let certain states, unions etc etc off the hook of the additional costs. Most "good" ideas rest on the fact that they truly are a good idea. Finally, nothing is reducing any cost here, it just is changing who is paying for it and increasing it with a bunch of Federal Bureaucracy.
fae4now posted at 10:54 pm on Fri, Aug 17, 2012.
Chatmandu,
One of the many benefits of the ACA is that it allows parents to keep their offspring on their insurance policies up to the age of 26. Especially good for students. That means that the parents, in other words, the family, is now able to take personal responsibility for their health care coverage. Of course this costs THEM, not you, more money.
Without this expanded coverage these young people would have few options - Medicaid perhaps or ER visits that they can not pay for. Without this provision in the ACA "other people's money' would have to pay for the health care needs of these young people who number in the millions.
So you see, the ACA in this way preserves 'other people's money' and helps prevent it from running out. And isn't that what you want?
Bet they never mention that on Fox News!
fae4now posted at 10:58 pm on Fri, Aug 17, 2012.
VofR,
Who said the ACA had to be shoved down everyone's throat?
Oh, that's right, Fox News and the Rushies said so.
In fact, intelligent people throughout the nation have been fighting for some form of universal health care coverage for around four decades now.......in case you missed it.