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Birth Control NOT Included in List of Free Preventive Health Services

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that the White House is set to announce its list of which preventive health services will be free to consumers under the new health law. The list includes cancer screenings (including mammograms and colonoscopies), immunizations and tobacco cessation services, but does not include any birth control method.

Birth control is the definition of a preventive service. Preventing sexually transmitted diseases and pregnancy is paramount to women’s health, as well as decreasing the soaring HIV rates across the country.

98% of sexually active American women use a form of birth control during their lives. The people this health bill was designed to help currently cannot afford birth control (as well as other medical services) and are in desperate need of free and consistent access to some form of contraception.

According to the Daily Beast, the White House will “spend the next 6 to 18 months researching women’s health before releasing new guidelines for women’s preventive health care.” But access to basic birth control as a preventive service will not be covered under the regulations taking effect on September 23.

The most glaring oversight here is that yesterday the White House released its comprehensive HIV/AIDS strategy.

The new HIV/AIDS strategy focuses on 3 areas: increasing access to care, decreasing HIV-related health disparities and reducing the number of people who become infected. How can you promote an HIV/AIDS program without offering condoms in the areas that have the highest rate of transmission?

Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius commented that the White House’s goal is to make new infections rare, and that “the strategy calls for an intensification of HIV prevention efforts among communities where the disease is most heavily concentrated” and “cites the importance of greater education to reduce the spread of the disease, including the use of condoms.”

By not including birth control as a preventive health service, the issues of unintended pregnancy and STI transmissions will not decrease, and the government will spend far more money on dealing with the results than if they took care of the problem before it starts.