Over the past few years, I have always felt that I adequately understood the positive health contribution to the lives of the vast majority of people that receive healthcare through the Affordable Care Act, and have always been overjoyed by the knowledge that the law would enhance the quality of life for women in this nation.
Still, after coming across a report by Gretchen Borchelt who is vice president for reproductive rights at the National Women’s Law Center, the importance of the ACA has returned even more starkly, as I am both reminded of the past and enlightened by the groundbreaking improvements to women’s healthcare that was crafted in this legislation.
This has served to further bring home why it is tremendously important for Democrats to wage a furious battle to stop Republicans from destroying this law.
Here are the astounding facts, as laid out by Borchelt, in a video interview presented by the Huffington Post:
Before Obamacare 19 million women were uninsured in this country. After Obamacare, 9 in 10 of every woman had insurance.
She then went on to discuss pre-existing conditions:
Insurance companies basically treated being a woman as a pre-existing condition; Obamacare got rid of that all together.
The individual insurance market before Obamacare … an insurance company would say that you have a pre-existing condition that could include: if you’re pregnant, if you had a cesarean delivery, if you’re a survivor of domestic violence or rape; those are all actual reasons that insurance companies told women … we’re not gonna offer you coverage.
Gender Rating (discrimination; pure and simple):
Gender Rating is a practice that insurance companies used to use in the individual markets and small group markets, where insurance companies would decide that women use more health coverage than men, so they would charge women more than men. Gender rating is discrimination, pure and simple.
We at the National Women’s Law Center surveyed plans before Obamacare went into effect and we found that 92 percent of plans used Gender Rating. The insurance industry didn’t get rid of it voluntarily, we had Obamacare that came in and said you could no longer do this practice. The concern would be that they would try to return to that if we were to repeal Obamacare.
Protective Services:
The Affordable Care Act requires a set of women’s protective services to be covered without additional cost to the individual. It ranges from mammograms to flu shots, to cancer screenings, to domestic violence screenings and treatments.
Birth control is one of those listed services. Obamacare requires each insurance plan to provide coverage of the full range of FDA approve birth control methods for women. And that has saved women over 1.4 billion dollars on the pill alone in just one year—birth control prevents pregnancy but it also prevents other health conditions, all of which are covered under this law. It is a life changing, life saving, benefit for women.
Before the ACA, only 12% of plans in the individual markets covered maternity care.
Obamacare has said that all individual market plans and small group plans have to cover maternity care. We did a survey before Obamacare passed and found that only 12% of plans in the individual markets covered maternity care. So, to now say that all of them have to has made a real difference.
They also have to cover breastfeeding support and supplies and this is not something that has ever been covered by insurance. And paying out of pocket for a breast pump could be extremely expensive; they’re hundreds of dollars. Now women are able to get them. So it has really changed the entire landscape and I think we are still seeing the benefits of that played out in the last few years.
Bold emphasis by diarist.
I have to say that the astonishing information provided in her comments certainly flies in the face of those who have been arguing that Democrats have not been addressing the needs of working people. The destruction of the ACA would simply be devastating to this entire nation.