Mom: "I've got a baby". Dad: "Ay Carumba, how am I going to pay for this?"
A recent Institute of Medicine (IOM) report recommends eight additional preventive health services for women be included at no cost to patients under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 (ACA). The recommendation garnered lots of publicity because it was reported that the IOM panel suggested that contraceptives should be made available at no charge to reduce unwanted pregnancies. The recommendation stated:
To reduce the rate of unintended pregnancies, which accounted for almost half of pregnancies in the U.S. in 2001, the report urges that HHS consider adding the full range of Food and Drug Administration-approved contraceptive methods as well as patient education and counseling for all women with reproductive capacity. Women with unintended pregnancies are more likely to receive delayed or no prenatal care and to smoke, consume alcohol, be depressed, and experience domestic violence during pregnancy. Unintended pregnancy also increases the risk of babies being born preterm or at a low birth weight, both of which raise their chances of health and developmental problems.
Read the complete recommendation here [download id=”4″]
Of course, that did not sit well with religious conservatives. It has been reported that the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops strongly opposes that idea of no cost contraceptives. The church prohibits any form of birth control, including condoms and the hormonal pill. The New York Times subsequently reported on advances for male contraceptives. The new male contraceptive would give couples other alternatives for family planning.
Regardless of whether the contraceptive was for a man or woman, contraceptives should be made available to anyone who wants to prevent an unwanted pregnancy, free of charge.
Maternity coverage is virtually non-existent within the majority of individual and family health insurance plans. Maternity is covered in group health plans, those plans generally sponsored by an employer. Currently, only the Access for Infants and Mothers (AIM) program in California offers any sort of health insurance if you are pregnant and not in a group health plan.
To be fair and balanced, all health insurance plans should include a maternity option as well as ‘no cost’ contraceptives. The stress of a pregnancy, either by design or accident, can be tremendous. I can see nothing more ‘Pro-Family” than mandatory maternity coverage. Similarly, no or low cost contraceptives for men and women could save millions of dollars for the insurance carriers and the public health insurance programs.
Because health insurance companies have not been mandated to include, at the least the option, for maternity coverage within individual and family plans, families of modest means have been forced to use government programs like Medi-Cal or AIM. The cost of these programs is borne by taxpayers.
Under our current health care system, pregnancies are expensive. Even more expensive is the cost to treat and care for babies that are born with challenges because of a lack of prenatal care. Conversely, contraceptives to prevent pregnancy are cheap. Make them available to everyone at no cost.