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Forum Post: This is what Republicans want to repeal. Republicans stand against women and the 99%

Posted 11 years ago on Aug. 1, 2012, 12:21 p.m. EST by repubsRtheprob (1209)
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By Dr. Paula Johnson Guest Contributor

August 1, 2012 marks the first time in history that insurers will be required to provide women with a set of core women’s health preventive services without cost-sharing. These services are part of the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) robust plan of preventive care for women across the lifespan and represent a paradigm shift from a health care system built on diagnostic treatment of disease toward a foundation of disease prevention and wellness promotion.

Dr. Paula Johnson, Chief of the DIvision of Women’s Health, Brigham and Women’s Hospital

Unfortunately, not all U.S. women will benefit from the new system of care. With June’s Supreme Court ruling, some states may refuse to expand Medicaid to millions of our country’s poorest women, many of whom are near elderly, depriving them of access to preventive services available to Medicaid recipients and a better chance at a healthy life.

Let’s be clear that the preventive health services available under the ACA will allow women to become healthier and help reduce cost. Prior to reform, more than half of U.S. women were not up-to-date on recommended preventive health services, a fact not surprising given the growing epidemic of chronic illness among women that is costly, at an estimated $466 billion per year, yet preventable.

The new preventive services available to women with private insurance include:

Well-woman visits: Half of women delay or avoid well-woman preventive services due to cost barriers.

Screening for gestational diabetes: Gestational diabetes affects 1 in 20 pregnant women with 18% higher associated health care costs.

Human papillomavirus (HPV) testing: HPV, associated with many conditions including cervical cancer, infects one in four U.S. females with direct costs of $3.6 billion annually.

Counseling for sexually transmitted infections: Nineteen million new occurrences of STIs emerge each year at an estimated annual cost of $17 billion.

Annual counseling and screening for HIV for all sexually active women: Women represent one in four HIV cases#. Lifetime direct medical costs are about $1 billion or between $73 million and $93 million annually.

Contraceptive methods and counseling for all women with reproductive capacity: Nearly half of U.S. pregnancies are unplanned resulting in three million pregnancies each year and a cost of $19 billion annually.

Breastfeeding support, supplies, and counseling: Breastfeeding helps reduce Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, chronic childhood conditions and lowers the risk of breast and ovarian cancers in mothers. If 80 percent of mothers breastfed their children exclusively for the first six months of life, the U.S could save 741 lives and $10.5 billion annually.

Screening and counseling for interpersonal and domestic violence (IPV): One in three women will report IPV in their lifetime. Millions of women in the U.S. are abused by their partners each year at a cost of over $5 billion annually.

The Supreme Court recently ruled that states can decide whether to expand Medicaid coverage to the poorest Americans. In states refusing to expand coverage, many women will be denied access to care, including preventive care. Given that the uninsured are less likely to obtain preventive services, expanding Medicaid offers an avenue for women to receive preventive care, crucial to stemming the rising tide of chronic disease among this population. Furthermore, the resultant increase in preventive service utilization that insurance is likely to bring can lower chronic illness rates and the associated health care costs that often contribute to growing government budgets.

And in MA specifically?

Massachusetts has a long history of requiring private insurers to cover a list of comprehensive medical and preventive services for its residents. Many of these mandates existed prior to Massachusetts reform (Chapter 58) and were incorporated into the 2006 state health reform law. The ACA enhances Massachusetts’ existing benefits in two important ways. First, the federal law eliminates consumer cost-sharing for some of Massachusetts’ mandatory women’s health benefits like contraception and pap smears. Commonwealth Care has voluntarily covered contraception without cost-sharing since Summer of 2011, and now most employer-sponsored plans and Commonwealth Choice Plans will follow suit. Second, the ACA provides Massachusetts women with additional mandatory benefits, including well woman visits, breastfeeding support, gestational diabetes screening and screening for interpersonal violence. Overall, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services estimates that 1,212,350 women in Massachusetts will have guaranteed access to these additional preventive services without cost-sharing for policies renewing on or after August 1, 2012. While Massachusetts women continue to gain access to preventive care under health reform, many women in other states may not be as fortunate.

America, one of the world’s wealthiest countries, spends more per capita on health care than any other nation yet has one of the lowest life expectancy rates in the developed world. To improve quality and reduce cost, all roads lead to prevention. Today marks another step in the right direction. States can do their part by accepting federal Medicaid expansion funding extending prevention and wellness to all women, regardless of income or state of residence.

Paula Johnson, MD, MPH was a member of the IOM Committee on Women’s Health Preventive Services. She is the Executive Director of the Connors Center for Women’s Health and Gender Biology and Chief of the Division of Women’s Health at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. About the author

Blogger, CommonHealth Rachel Zimmerman worked as a staff reporter for The Wall Street Journal for 10 years, most recently covering health and medicine out of the paper’s Boston bureau. Rachel has also written for The New York Times, the (now-defunct) Seattle Post-Intelligencer and the alternative newspaper Willamette Week, in Portland, Ore., among other publications. Rachel co-wrote a book about birth, published by Bantam/Random House, and spent 2008 as a Knight Science Journalism Fellow at MIT. Rachel lives in Cambridge with her husband and two daughters. View all posts by Rachel Zimmerman →

14 Comments

14 Comments


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[-] 2 points by repubsRtheprob (1209) 11 years ago

Who can support a party that has voted 33 times to repeal these benefits for the 99%.

Republicans stand against women and the 99%. Support democrats.

[-] 1 points by hchc (3297) from Tampa, FL 11 years ago

Don't worry, we are so broke (in the market's view) and have such an awful understanding of why, that pretty soon there isnt going to be much of anything for anyone.

And we can all sit around and blame Dems and Reps while they are still eating lobster together in DC.

[-] 1 points by repubsRtheprob (1209) 11 years ago

So it doesn't matter that republicans want to take away these benefits for women?

Are you a man? Don't you have a mother, sister, wife, daughter? Why don't you care about this important issue that illustrates the real difference between the 2 parties?

[-] 0 points by hchc (3297) from Tampa, FL 11 years ago

I care, Im just stating that this idiotic two party system is going to leave EVERYONE IN SHAMBLES.

The sheep know there is a cliff, and they keep following the corporation's puppets faster towards the cliff.

GEtting those services for free is going to be so far down on the list after this corpogov is done with us, we will be so pissed at ourselves for not getting it together.

[-] 1 points by slizzo (-96) 11 years ago

posts like this give me hope that you can be cured of your 9/11 trutherism.

I offer truther rehab for free.

like substance addiction, though, you first have to admit you have a problem. once you do, I can help you shed this insanity with ease.

let me know.

[-] 1 points by repubsRtheprob (1209) 11 years ago

Sounds like an angry rant. I've no patience for extremism.

I guess this great success doesn't matter to you, but it does to millions of women (and their men who care) And the OWS people I know love it. but they are all Dems so you wouldn't like them.

[-] 1 points by slizzo (-96) 11 years ago

must suck when a 9/11 truther hands you your ass.

here's some news you can use: both parties suck

the difference between them is inconsequential. attempting to be cool via your political preference is not working. you come off like a clueless asskisser gullible enough to believe the democrats give a shit about you.

they don't. they want your money and your vote. other than that, you can fuck off for all they care.

[-] 1 points by repubsRtheprob (1209) 11 years ago

Fuck you. You right wing wacko.

[-] 1 points by slizzo (-96) 11 years ago

I see I hit a nerve. too funny!

so you do use your political preference to prove how cool you are, eh?

that's so cool!

nevermind that you are a vote and a contribution and nothing else, keep slobbering kisses all over that donkey ass while the grown-ups know both parties suck shit.

[-] 0 points by hchc (3297) from Tampa, FL 11 years ago

And where is this occupation at? Oh ya, in your head. Got it.

Extremism is grouping yourself with a small segment of the population (registered Dems) till the day you die, regardless of the crimes they commit. Idiot.

Good bye troll.

[-] 1 points by repubsRtheprob (1209) 11 years ago

I haven't stated I group myself with "small segment .... till the day I die" You are making things up to attack me with 'cause I won't give you personal info. You are so mean spirited. Do you feel threatened by my dem affiliation. You know the republicans are the problem right?

I don't deserve this poor treatment. I've been respectful. You aren't like the OWS people I've met. (No not in my head. meanie!)

I hope you get better. OWS needs passion but not people who push away supporters.

troll? thats so nasty.

[-] 0 points by slizzo (-96) 11 years ago

too bad 65% of the 99% oppose the APA.

it's a piece of shit. it will cost way more than they claim. if you don't know this, you must have been asleep for the last 40 years.

over the last 30 years, govt has encroachined steadily in the medical profession. it's no coincidence that care quality has gone down while costs have gone up.

the less govt involvement in medicie, the better for everyone.

[-] 1 points by repubsRtheprob (1209) 11 years ago

It will cost less than the private insurance rips us off for now. It will cost less than paying for non insured to go to emergency rooms. And it will cost way less when we create the public option, remove profit from healthcare, remove lobbying costs from healthcare costs, remove obscenely high exec salaries from our healthcare costs, and put the private insurers out of business. You don't know what you're talkin about.

[-] 1 points by slizzo (-96) 11 years ago

"It will cost less than the private insurance rips us off for now."

wrong. DNC asskissing noted.

" It will cost less than paying for non insured to go to emergency rooms."

wrong. DNC asskissing noted again.

" And it will cost way less when we create the public option"

wrong. socialist bullshit noted.

now go ahead and claim I think it is just fine the way it is, that I hate the poor, and that I want sick people to die so someone I don't know can have a private jet. seen and heard your boilerplate lefty bullshit all before. it's so predictable.

this law sucks. most of the assholes who voted for it never read it. it was passed like no other law was. your slavish devotion to the dnc is the only reason you feel the need to defend the indefensible.