Just yesterday, one of my friends paid $35 for her monthly co-pay for her birth control prescription. And she has good insurance – yikes!

But that was yesterday. Starting today, because of the Affordable Care Act (or Obamacare), every new health insurance policy must include FDA-approved contraceptives without any co-pays or deductibles.

And that’s not all. Because of the ACA, starting today all new insurance policies must cover other women’s preventive care without co-pays or deductibles, including:

An annual well woman preventive care visit with your doctor.

Screening for:

Gestational diabetes



STIs



HIV/AIDS



HPV

Screening and counseling for domestic violence.

Breastfeeding support, supplies, and counseling.

What’s more, because of the ACA, since 2010 many other adult preventive services like mammograms and colonoscopies have been covered without co-pays and deductibles.

We need your help to make sure women and their families know about these benefits – your contribution will help us reach hundreds of thousands of women.

If more women knew about these new benefits, and took advantage of them, the result would be a dramatic increase in women’s overall health, as well as fewer expenditures later on for conditions that could have been prevented.

For every woman we reach through your support, imagine the look on her face when she realizes that she can have a PAP test at no extra cost, schedule that mammogram she has been putting off, or finally fill that birth control prescription.

There is so much more to say about the Affordable Care Act, but I will leave you with one thought: This law, which eliminates discrimination against women in both insurance rates and benefits, is the greatest legislative advance for women since Title IX was passed in 1972.