The House of Representatives finally passed health care reform!
What's in the health care reform bill?
- It extends health care coverage to tens of millions of women and families.
- It guarantees access to affordable, lifesaving screenings for breast and cervical cancer.
- It protects women against gender discrimination by private insurers.
- It ends the practice of dropping coverage because of pre-existing conditions.
- It significantly increases insurance coverage of reproductive health care, including family planning.
- It's a huge victory for women's health, but our work isn't over yet.
While we celebrate the passage of health care reform, we're going to need your help to fix the damage caused by the Nelson amendment. If left intact, the Nelson amendment would be the most severe restriction on private health insurance coverage for abortion in 35 years.
Find out how your representative voted.
Contact Congress today. Help us fix the Nelson amendment.
President Obama’s health care reform proposal would make a real difference for the women and families who rely on Planned Parenthood. It would extend health care coverage to tens of millions of Americans; guarantee access to affordable preventive screenings for cancer and other life-saving tests; protect women against gender discrimination by private insurers; end the practice of dropping coverage because of pre-existing conditions; and significantly increase access to reproductive health care.
That’s what health care reform is all about — helping families get the health care they need.
The bill does not impact
abortion coverage:
By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, including the "Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act" (Public Law 111-148), I hereby order as follows:
Section. 1. Policy. Following the recent enactment of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (the "Act"), it is necessary to establish an adequate enforcement mechanism to ensure that Federal funds are not used for abortion services (except in cases of rape or incest, or when the life of the woman would be endangered), consistent with a longstanding Federal statutory restriction that is commonly known as the Hyde Amendment. The purpose of this order is to establish a comprehensive, Government-wide set of policies and procedures to achieve this goal and to make certain that all relevant actors -- Federal officials, State officials (including insurance regulators) and health care providers -- are aware of their responsibilities, new and old.
The Act maintains current Hyde Amendment restrictions governing abortion policy and extends those restrictions to the newly created health insurance exchanges. Under the Act, longstanding Federal laws to protect conscience (such as the Church Amendment, 42 U.S.C. 300a-7, and the Weldon Amendment, section 508(d)(1) of Public Law 111-8) remain intact and new protections prohibit discrimination against health care facilities and health care providers because of an unwillingness to provide, pay for, provide coverage of, or refer for abortions.
Numerous executive agencies have a role in ensuring that these restrictions are enforced, including the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), and the Office of Personnel Management.
Sec. 2. Strict Compliance with Prohibitions on Abortion Funding in Health Insurance Exchanges. The Act specifically prohibits the use of tax credits and cost-sharing reduction payments to pay for abortion services (except in cases of rape or incest, or when the life of the woman would be endangered) in the health insurance exchanges that will be operational in 2014. The Act also imposes strict payment and accounting requirements to ensure that Federal funds are not used for abortion services in exchange plans (except in cases of rape or incest, or when the life of the woman would be endangered) and requires State health insurance commissioners to ensure that exchange plan funds are segregated by insurance companies in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles, OMB funds management circulars, and accounting guidance provided by the Government Accountability Office.
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Naral statement makes it clear that the change was simply bureaucratic:
Washington, D.C. – Nancy Keenan, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, issued the following statement regarding House passage of the health-care reform package.
"Our mission at NARAL Pro-Choice America is to guarantee every woman the right to make personal decisions regarding the full range of reproductive choices, including preventing unintended pregnancy, bearing healthy children, and choosing legal abortion. We assessed the health-reform package against these criteria, and determined that, because of the egregious abortion-coverage restrictions, we could not endorse this bill.
But, because the measure has other very positive provisions for reproductive health, we couldn't in good conscience call for the bill's outright defeat and thus deny millions of American women and men the promise of better—although imperfect—access to health-care services that are important to our pro-choice values.
"
The legislation includes an onerous provision that requires Americans to write two separate checks if the insurance plan they choose includes abortion coverage. This unacceptable bureaucratic stigmatization could cause insurance carriers to drop abortion coverage, even though more than 85 percent of private plans currently cover this care for women. Our message to our allies in Congress and in the White House is clear: We do not accept this bill as the final word on how abortion coverage will be defined in the new health-care system. We are committed to finding opportunities to repeal these unacceptable restrictions as the new system takes shape.
"
At the same time, we recognize that the bill will bring more than 30 million Americans into a system that includes affordable family-planning services, better access to contraception, and maternity care. It also outlaws some discriminatory insurance-industry practices that make health care more expensive for women. We applaud this tremendous progress, but we will continue to work toward a day when these kinds of achievements can be made without undermining women's access to abortion coverage. American women should not have to sacrifice their right to choose in order to make progress in other areas of health care. "This situation is a reminder that, despite significant pro-choice gains in the last two election cycles, anti-choice lawmakers still outnumber our allies. This is precisely the reason that politicians such as Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) and Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) were able to use women's reproductive health as a bargaining chip. We call on members of America's pro-choice majority to channel their anger into action and join us in working to elect more members of Congress who share our pro-choice values."
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