As town hall meetings on health care reform are held across the state, now is the time to let your elected officials know your views on the issues. The debate is filled with opinions, questions and emotions, but the role reproductive health care will play under health care reform has not received proper attention.

With 24 health centers across the state of Colorado, Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains wants to ensure women are not left worse off after health care reform than they are today.

As a trusted health care provider serving over 120,000 women a year with thousands of Pap tests, breast and cervical cancer screenings, and treatment and testing for sexually transmitted diseases, we know women rely on preventative care to stay healthy.

Policy makers need to understand that family planning and reproductive health care are mainstream health care, because 98 percent of women use contraception at some point in their lives, and most women in their reproductive years consider their ob/gyn their primary care provider.

Women of childbearing age spend 68 percent more in out-of-pocket expenses than men. Birth control is not always covered by insurance and being pregnant can disqualify a woman from receiving health insurance due to a “pre-existing condition.” This type of medical discrimination helps explain why the current system is not working for women.

Before Congress adjourned for the August congressional recess, we saw numerous misguided attacks in proposed health care reform legislation aimed to undermine women’s health and take away existing benefits most women have today.

When members of Congress reconvene in September, women will likely face threats from legislators who fail to recognize that when women are healthy, their families are healthy, and this strengthens society in its entirety.

For all women who want their annual wellness exam, Pap test, and breast and cervical screening treated as covered health care, now is the time to act. Now is the time to attend a town hall or call your elected official and ask them to support the full range of reproductive health services in health care reform legislation. Ask them to support the right of all patients to access their provider of choice by including community-based health centers in future health plan networks.

Across America today, more than six in 10 patients who receive care at a women’s health center like Planned Parenthood consider it their primary source of health care. One in four women who receives contraceptive care does so at a women’s health center. One in six who obtains a Pap test or a pelvic exam does so at a women’s health center, as do one-third of women who receive counseling, testing, or treatment for STDs, including HIV.

Each year, Planned Parenthood health centers across the country perform nearly one million Pap tests, identifying 93,000 women at risk of developing cervical cancer and provide more than 850,000 breast exams. These numbers demonstrate that community-based health centers like Planned Parenthood are essential providers. For many women, these health centers serve as their sole providers of health care.

Colorado is no different. Planned Parenthood health centers from Durango to Fort Collins hear every day from clients who say they struggle to afford birth control but want to do the responsible thing when it comes to planning their families and futures. Like other community-based health centers across Colorado, we’re sometimes the only place people can turn to when denied care elsewhere.

Restricting reproductive care or restricting access to women’s health care providers is not real health care reform. Women know better and deserve better.

What’s more, women comprise more than half of the nation’s population. Singling women out of health care would increase disparities and would be unjust. Women – mothers, sisters, daughters, granddaughters, wives – simply deserve equal treatment under health care reform.

Vicki Cowart is CEO and President of Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains. EDITOR’S NOTE: This is an online-only column and has not been edited.