Among its many provisions, the Affordable Care Act required that men and women be charged the same health care premiums. Not only is this a matter of social justice — before the ACA, women were paying over $1 billion per year more than men — but it is also symbolic. The ACA sent a message that women’s health mattered. Now, as a Republican-controlled Congress vows to repeal the ACA, this repeal would make women’s health insurance costs disproportionately spike.
Once again, men are dictating the fate of female health. After all of President Trump’s promises to “repeal Obamacare,” the change is finally imminent. While many changes will likely come about if the ACA gets repealed, the status of women’s health will be one of the areas most affected.
Numerous provisions in the ACA increased women’s access to preventative and emergency care. We do not know what will replace the Affordable Care Act, but recent events suggest that birth control and abortion will become less available. For starters, Rep. Tom Price (R-Ga.) is Trump’s pick for secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services. Price has a long history of using religious reasoning to oppose the ACA’s birth control provision that allows women covered by health insurance to receive free birth control. Price said in 2012 that “there’s not one” woman who cannot afford birth control.
Federal funding has long helped Planned Parenthood to provide preventative care, such as birth control and screenings for STDs and cancer, to women of all ages. Earlier this month, the House voted to take away this funding despite no federal funding being used to provide abortions.
Abortion was legal in the United States until the mid 19th century, and the first statutory abortion regulation was a poison control measure designed to make ending unwanted pregnancies safer. Regulating reproductive health should ensure accessibility and safety for people seeking abortions without criminalizing or restricting what they need.
We all want to limit abortions. Affordable women’s health care is the easiest way to accomplish this — not to mention that it’s unfair for half of our adult population to pay outrageous costs for basic health care necessities.
Congressional Republicans claim that they will soon repeal the Affordable Care Act, and it seems increasingly likely that they will not have an immediate “replacement.” This could strip around 18 million Americans of their health insurance within a year.
For women in particular, even the most routine medical needs could become incredibly expensive. The dual effort to defund Planned Parenthood alongside repealing the ACA could have devastating effects on women’s health care access. Likewise, the Affordable Care Act mandates that private insurers provide cancer screenings, mammograms and birth control without a copay.
Without insurance, basic birth control pills currently available at no cost could cost women up to hundreds of dollars per month. No matter which laws are passed, these lawmakers’ harsh rhetoric has already had an effect. Planned Parenthood has reported that demand for IUDs is up 900 percent recently, and the organization specifically cited women’s fear of losing coverage for birth control as a factor. Right now, some IUDs are available at no additional cost under the ACA. If repealed, they could cost $1,000 or more.
