Obamacare requires that every insurance policy covers certain things with no additional out-of-pocket charges for the policy-holder. One of those things to be covered is prescribed birth control, whether pills or an IUD or implants or any kind of birth control prescribed by a doctor. Insurance companies are not allowed to make customers pay anything for them, but
some are doing it anyway, as the Kaiser Family Foundation finds.
The analysis looked at 20 health insurers in five states and found companies that provided limited or no coverage for some forms contraception. In some cases, the insurers imposed copays or required women to pay the full cost of a drug.
For example, seven insurers didn't pay the full cost of vaginal rings, and one company does not pay for ParaGard, the only nonhormonal IUD available to women. It can cost up to $1,000.
"That's a flagrant violation of the law," says Gena Madow, a spokeswoman for Planned Parenthood.
Insurance companies disagree, saying that the law gives them latitude and that the federal guidelines on coverage of contraception "makes clear that plans do not have to cover every single form of birth control." So, take the case of two emergency contraceptive pills: Plan B or ella. According to a recent study, ella could be more effective than Plan B at preventing pregnancy. But ella is newer and might be more expensive for insurance companies to provide. So they only provide Plan B. A woman wanting more assurance that the drug will work and choosing to use ella would have to pay for it herself.
Planned Parenthood disagrees that this picking and choosing by insurance companies is not, in fact, complying with the law, and has asked the government to make insurers comply with the actual law, not their interpretation of it.