Birth Control is Preventive Care

A key part of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), also know as the health care reform law, will require new health insurance plans to fully cover women’s preventive healthcare services with no co-pays. 

At the moment, the law includes women’s routine screenings, such as mammograms and pap tests, and also some screenings for all pregnant women, but prescription birth control is currently not included as a preventive service.

It's now up to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to define the full list of services, which will be classified as women’s preventive services, including a decision about whether contraception will be included.

HHS has asked the Institute of Medicine (IOM) to study this matter to make recommendations about which preventive health care services, including prescription birth control, should be included as women’s preventive care without out-of-pocket costs.

Guttmacher Institute found that 50% of women, ages 18-34, including Latinas, say there has been a time when the cost of prescription birth control prevented them from using it consistently.

We need your help to make sure that all Latinas have access to the contraception they need.

In August of this year, IOM will make a recommendation to HHS about the full list of services to be considered preventative care, and to be available to women with no out-of-pocket cost.

We want birth control on that list, which is why we need you.

Let's tell HHS that contraception is prevention!