Teen Pregnancy Help

Free birth control under the Affordable Care Act is a new addition to the U.S. health care bill passed in August, 2012. Now, women can get free birth control under Affordable Care Act without having to pay a copay or a anything more than your insurance premium.

The idea behind getting free birth control under the Affordable Care Act is to provide women with access to affordable preventative care when it comes to women's issues like birth control, breastfeeding support, domestic violence screening, HIV/STD testing and free HPV screening. These are huge concerns that many women may have but cannot always afford to pay for out of pocket. Making these tests and screenings available can save hundreds of thousands, if not millions of lives, each year. In addition, making birth control readily available to sexually active teens and adult women is a great way to cut down on the number of unplanned pregnancies for teens and women that might struggle to provide for an unplanned child. 

Free Birth Control Under Affordable Care Act Details:

Under the Affordable Care Act, anyone with insurance is able to get their birth control for free without having to pay any kind of co-pay. The only stipulation is that the type of birth control must be the generic version, unless the generic is unavailable. However, this goes for just about all kinds of prescription birth control including the birth control pill, the intrauterine device (IUD), the patch, NuvaRing, implanon and the depo shot. The morning-after pill is also included in this measure. The morning-after pill is another type of birth control that is taken after a case of failed contraception (ie. forgotten birth control pill or a condom malfunction.)

With one in three women facing difficulties paying for birth control, this preventative medicine measure is a great addition to the care and welfare for women throughout the United States. However, the free birth control under the Affordable Care Act is facing some criticism from conservative groups that do not believe in the usage of birth control to prevent pregnancy. Because tax payers dollars are going to pay for the Affordable Care Act, conservative groups do not agree that they should have to pay for everyone to have nation-wide free access to birth control and health care. Although it might be too soon to tell, conservative groups are also concerned that offering free birth control will only increase insurance company premiums thus charging the mass of consumers with health insurance even more money. Many conservative religious followers are also concerned about the plan covering the morning-after pill because many believe it to be a form of the abortion pill. However, research indicates that the morning after pill only prevents sperm from reaching the egg for fertilization and does not in anyway work against an-already fertilized egg. 

Despite the controversy surrounding the free birth control under Affordable Care Act, the measure remains in place for the time being. Many supporters of the measure agree that making birth control more affordable is only going to lower the number of teens having babies, which costs the United States tax payers about $18 billion each year, according to research from the Guttmacher Institute. 

Assisting women and teenage girls with their birth control costs, will give these women more money to spend on other preventative care visits like regular visits for pap smears, mammograms and more. These regular visits can greatly cut down on the number of women diagnosed too late with diseases like breast cancer, ovarian cancer, HPV and more. 

Parents with sexually active teens should look into how they can get free birth control for their teen. Adult women using birth control should make sure their health insurance company is adhering to these new free birth control standards under the Affordable Care Act.

Sources: cosmopolitan, webmd.com, huffingtonpost.com, guttmacher.org