Thanks to Obamacare, Women Are Saving Nearly $1.4 Billion on Birth Control Pills

<a href="http://www.shutterstock.com/cat.mhtml?country_code=US&page_number=1&position=1&safesearch=1&search_language=en&search_source=search_form&search_type=keyword_search&searchterm=birth%20control&sort_method=relevance2&source=search&timestamp=1436360578&tracking_id=pbFbWmRnM54AXMW7ld8gzA&use_local_boost=1&version=llv1&page=1&inline=174193232">Image Point Fr</a>/Shutterstock

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


Following the Affordable Care Act’s mandate for insurance companies to provide free contraceptives, individual spending on birth control pills plummeted by almost half in the first six months the landmark healthcare law went into effect.

This is according to a new study published by the Health Report on Tuesday, which found the sharp decline in contraceptive spending saved women a startling $1.4 billion in 2013 alone. Out-of-pocket spending on intrauterine devices (IUD’s) also declined by 68 percent.

The study comes in the same week as the results of a public health program in Colorado that provides free contraceptive methods to low-income women revealed that the rate of unintended teen pregnancies dropped by 40 percent and abortions by 35 percent.

“We have no doubt that the cost makes a difference,” president of the National Center for Health Research Diana Zuckerman told the Times. “When you have free contraception, it’s going to affect pregnancy and abortion as well because money matters.”

But why are women still paying for their own birth control at all, when the law requires insurance companies to cover all birth control methods approved by the FDA? According to a report published in April, many insurance plans continue to skirt the law by failing to comply with the birth control mandate and charging women for costs illegally. Many women are also still under plans not covering contraception that that were established before 2010 and that have since been “grandfathered” into the healthcare law.

Think your plan might be in violation of the Affordable Care Act? Here’s a handy guide for what steps to take, provided by the National Women’s Law Center.

WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

payment methods

WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate