Women’s Health Policy

The Affordable Care Act (ACA) requires most private health insurance plans to provide coverage for a broad range of preventive services, including most contraceptives for women. This policy was at the center of a Supreme Court case brought forward by for-profit corporations (Hobby Lobby and Conestoga) that successfully claimed that the contraceptive coverage requirement violated their religious rights. Last month, the Supreme Court agreed to hear yet another challenge (Zubik v Burwell) to the contraceptive coverage requirement, this time brought by nonprofit corporations, claiming that the accommodation established by the federal government for religiously affiliated nonprofit employers with objections to contraception violates their religious rights.

As the U.S. Supreme Court gears up to hear a new round of legal challenges to the ACA’s contraceptive coverage requirement, a new Kaiser Family Foundation data note finds 10 percent of nonprofits with more than 1,000 employees have requested an “accommodation” to the health law’s birth control requirement. Overall,…

In this issue of the Women’s Health Issues journal, Alina Salganicoff and Laurie Sobel discuss how the private insurance reforms and expansions in the Affordable Care Act (ACA) have affected access to coverage for women and where gaps remain.

The Affordable Care Act (ACA) requires most private health insurance plans to provide coverage for a broad range of preventive services including Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved prescription contraceptives and services for women. Since the implementation of the ACA contraceptive coverage requirement in 2012, over 200 corporations have filed lawsuits claiming that including coverage for contraceptives or opting for an “accommodation” from the federal government violates their religious beliefs. This brief explains the legal issues raised by the nonprofit litigation and discusses the impact of the Hobby Lobby decision on the current litigation.

As Medicaid marks its 50th year, the program has unquestionably become the mainstay of health coverage for low-income women in the nation. Since its inception, its role for women has continued to evolve and expand, but the passage of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) swung open the doors for Medicaid to serve even more low-income women who lack access to private or employer-based insurance. This is because the ACA enabled states to finally eliminate Medicaid’s historical “categorical” requirements, which had essentially shut out women and men without dependent children.

The Affordable Care Act requires private insurance plans to cover recommended preventive services with no out-of-pocket charges for patients. This slate of covered services can change when the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force and other authorized groups add or modify recommendations; the federal government also periodically issues clarifications to guide…

This fact sheet reviews how coverage of contraceptives varies between private insurance under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and publicly-funded programs, including Medicaid, Medicare, TRICARE, the Indian Health Service, and Title X funded clinics.

A newly-updated infographic from the Kaiser Family Foundation explains the final regulations on employer-based coverage of birth control released today by the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services. How Does Where You Work Affect Your Contraceptive Coverage? provides a clear explanation of coverage requirements under the new regulations for employers with…

Public programs and private health insurance now pay for the vast majority of contraceptive services and supplies for women. However, complex and shifting regulations shaped by state and federal policy, legal challenges to the Affordable Care Act’s contraceptive coverage provision, and other factors affect the scope of coverage. New resources…

Following up on an earlier column for The Wall Street Journal’s Think Tank on seniors and poverty, Drew Altman looks at why older women will be more at risk of economic insecurity than men in the future. All previous columns by Drew Altman are available.