Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood, has an OpEd about the new Health Care Reform bill up at HuffPo in which she insists that the new health care legislation is Good For Women!
Let’s be clear. Despite its unacceptable provisions on abortion, the Affordable Care Act represents the biggest advance for women’s health in 45 years. For far too long, women have paid more to get less from our health care system. This new law helps redress that injustice. When the full provisions of the law take effect in 2014, millions more women will be covered. Women will no longer be charged more for care than men. And women will not be denied coverage because they are sick or pregnant.
They’ve even got a nifty video that talks the new bill.
” . . . significantly increases access to reproductive health care, including family planning . . . “
Oh, really? Not if you actually want to prevent a pregnancy.
Finally, the day has come when all new insurance plans are required to cover preventive health care without any co-payments or deductibles. But despite reassurances from Congress and the White House that birth control would be covered under health reform, it didn’t make the list of essential preventive services. Instead, all anyone could promise was a future “study.”
Close your legs, ladies! No birth control for you!
And just as the forced birthers got their way in the HCR bill, get ready for them to get their way on this as well.
In a move that’s brought unpleasant flashbacks to last Winter and Spring, the Catholic Church is waging its own campaign. According to a letter the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops sent to HHS last week, contraceptives and sterilization should not be considered preventive services. “To prevent pregnancy is not to prevent a disease,” the bishops’ letter explains, going on to argue that the interim list, which doesn’t include birth control, should be made permanent.
When, exactly, are we going to stand up against these people?
And make no mistake, this is a war on poor people. Women with the funds will always be able to get their birth control and men will be able to get their vasectomies.
