Dear Friends,

I hope you’ve been following our What’s in it for Women? campaign over the last week describing the new health care services and protections women are getting starting today, August 1, thanks to the new health care law.

Today, the final day of the campaign, we’re celebrating the start of the requirement that all new health insurance plans have to cover contraceptive care without charging anything extra – like a co-pay or deductible!  The NWHN has been working toward this historic milestone for many years, and we’re thrilled that women will finally be reaping the rewards.  On the What’s in it for Women? blog, you can read my colleague Keely Monroe’s explanation of how this change will help her, and millions of other women:

When I returned to the United States after serving in the Peace Corps, I was unemployed and it was very tough to find the money to pay for my contraception each month, but I managed to because I want to make sure that when I get pregnant it’s when I am ready.  Even now, as a young professional living in Washington, DC where the cost of living is high, the co-pays for my contraceptives take a real bite out of my budget.  I am relieved and thankful that starting today, the health care law is going to change all that.  And not only for me, but for all women – that’s what’s in it for women: relief from the stress of struggling to find dollars in our budgets to cover unaffordable co-pays for care we can’t do without!

You can read her whole post here.

The NWHN helped lay the foundation for this change by advocating for research that proves how access to affordable, comprehensive contraceptive care improves women’s health.  We worked with allies in Congress to get the women’s preventive health provision included in the health care law, and we testified about the importance of contraceptive care to the expert committee at the Institute of Medicine that developed recommendations about which preventive services are critical for keeping women healthy.

Opponents of family planning are trying to block this advance, but we know that the majority of the public strongly supports making contraceptive care available to women.  Along with you, we made sure that policymakers understood how important this policy is for women and we celebrated when President Obama stood strong for the regulations requiring insurers to cover contraceptive care without co-pays.

We hope you’ll celebrate with us again today and help us get the message out by liking What’s in it For Women? on Facebook and sharing it with your friends!

Thank you,


Cindy Pearson
Executive Director