On Thursday, Nicole Hopkins, writing in the Wall Street Journal, revived the theme, complaining of a "letter from my mother's insurer [that] promised that the more expensive plan 'conforms with the new health care law'—by covering maternity needs, newborn wellness and pediatric dental care. My mother asked: 'Do I need maternity care at 52?'"

But uninsured women of childbearing age weren't making choices between a Porsche and a Chevy in the pre-ACA world. They were trying to find a bus in sprawling towns where they had to walk while everyone else drove. According to the New York Times, in 2011, 62 percent of plans in the private market did not cover maternity care at all. The National Women's Law Center, looking at a narrower slice of the population, found that in 2009, only "13% of the health plans available to a 30-year-old woman" across the country in the individual market covered maternity care—and "in the capital cities of nearly half of the states there was not a single plan available through eHealthInsurance.com that covered maternity care." Insurers were also allowed to reject pregnant women from coverage for having a pre-existing condition (pregnancy), and to exclude women who'd had a Cesarian section from coverage entirely (since they'd be at risk of needing another if they were to have another kid).

This was one of the critical ways the individual market differed from the employer-based one: More than half the plans in the individual market in 2010 did not meet the baseline "bronze-level" standards under the ACA, according to a 2012 study published in Health Affairs, while only 1 percent of plans in the employer-based market were similarly deficient "tin" plans. So to the extent that the ACA changes standards for insurance by adding maternity coverage, it does so almost entirely only within the individual market. Most group plans—such as the ones most employed people have—already cover maternity care. That means employed men and women have for years already been in the same situation with regard to pregnant women that people in individual-market plans will be starting in 2014.

Maternity care isn't the only women's health issue that plans are now required to cover. In fact, there are 22 types of women's health tests, visits, or prescriptions that insurers must now cover, including contraception. It just happens that besides contraception, none of them has raised the same ire as maternity care. According to a fact sheet at Healthcare.gov, "All Marketplace health plans and many other plans must cover the following list of [22] preventive services for women without charging you a copayment or coinsurance. This is true even if you haven’t met your yearly deductible" though "only when these services are delivered by an in-network provider." Including are some of the diagnostic tests used in pregnancy, though not the whole spectrum of maternity needs, where co-pays may still apply depending on the type of plan a woman picks.