Election 2010 brought out a lot of negative rhetoric about health care reform. But yet when you explain many of the individual policies within health care reform, the policies within the bill enjoy overwhelming support from the American public. Some of the more popular provisions include allowing young adults to stay on their parents’ insurance plans up to age 26 and requiring insurance companies not to deny coverage based on “pre-existing conditions.”

One of the most exciting provisions of the new law is that preventative medical services will be covered with no co-pays or cost-sharing. I recently went to the doctor for a physical and was waiting to check out credit card in hand to cover my $20 co-pay only to be told that I owed NOTHING. It completely made my day and was because my insurance company had preemptively begun to cover some preventative services in anticipation of the new law taking full effect.

When it comes to preventative services for women of childbearing age, birth control is almost always near the top of the list of services that these women ask for when visiting their primary care provider. We’ve written before about what birth control means for women’s lives and yesterday’s editorial in the New Jersey Star-Ledger really says is better than I ever could. (Just do yourself a favor and don’t read the comments. Unless you like to start your week with the feeling that your head is about to explode.)

The bottom line is that 98% of women will use one or more forms of birth control in her lifetime so it seems like common sense that prescription birth control would be covered as a “preventative service” along with annual exams, Pap tests and breast exams.

Like these other services, birth control should be available to every woman without co-pays or other out-of-pocket costs to ensure that every woman has access to the birth control that works best for her.

Planned Parenthood health centers see too many women choosing between birth control and basics like rent, tuition, and childcare. One in three female voters (34%) reports having struggled with the cost of prescription birth control at some point. Among young women, this figure rises dramatically: 55 percent of women 18–34 have struggled with the cost of prescription birth control.

Making birth control available at no cost is a common sense step that makes it possible for women to use the method that works best for them and will reduce the number of unintended pregnancies in America.

Last month, Planned Parenthood launched a new national campaign “Birth Control Matters” in an effort to encourage HHS officials to include birth control as a preventative service.  Please sign the petition to let Obama Administration and HHS officials know that no woman should ever have to choose between paying her rent and purchasing her birth control. Birth control IS prevention and must be fully covered under health care reform!

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