With the three CEOs of the major players plus Dr. Gawande, I have hope that they can address the problem of rising health-care costs and the lack of preventative care coverage.
Congress enacted a women's preventative services coverage requirement as part of the Affordable Care Act.
But Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) expressed a fairly extreme concern on the House Floor Monday night about the expanded preventative health coverage: offering free birth control to women could eventually kill off the entire human species.
The Republicans, including Mitt Romney, are vocally against these obviously positive changes to the system, and they've vowed to repeal Obamacare and all of the Medicare provisions within, including the streamlined savings, the preventative care coverage, and they'll re-open the donut hole, leaving retirees with potentially thousands of dollars in out-of-pocket medical expenses every year.
She now wants to take data on parents' work lives and combine it with data about children's health insurance coverage, preventative health care, and health outcomes, such as illness, accidents, and obesity.
She was given a primetime speaking slot at the Democratic National Convention last month and is now touring the country to highlight differences in Democratic and Republican positions on issues such as equal pay and preventative health care coverage.
The original directive from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) on contraceptive healthcare actually fell under a broader Obamacare provision that required employers to "provide coverage" for "preventative services," including "preventative care" for female employees.
Almost all forms of medical coverage, from preventative care to major surgery, would eventually be covered, and there would be no payments.
Dan reports on an added aspect of the administration's new policy: as insurers give consumers the option of extending their plans for a year, the insurers would be required to tell consumers of protections that plans do not include (for example coverage for preventative screenings or contraception).
And in the years following that 2004 march, emergency contraception became legal over the counter, more reproductive health and rights organizations integrated intersectional frameworks (with admittedly more work to do), and the Affordable Care Act expanded access to preventative care and contraceptive coverage with no copay.
