Planned Parenthood Celebrates Implementation of Key Benefits of Health Law: Women and Families Start to Benefit from the Bill Now

Planned Parenthood Federation of America today celebrated the six-month anniversary of the Affordable Care Act becoming law by highlighting the important benefits to women and patient protections that go into effect today.

"The Affordable Care Act represents the greatest advancement for women's health care in 45 years," said Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America. "The new law will cover more women, increase access to reproductive health care, and ease the disproportionate health care burdens on women, who still earn less than men but often face higher health care costs."

Women have much to gain by the new health care law since they are disproportionately affected by the country's broken health care system. Women are routinely charged higher premiums than men. Women are often denied coverage for so-called "pre-existing" conditions such as breast cancer or even pregnancy. The Affordable Care Act puts an end to those practices and provides many more benefits, including covering preventive care, such as lifesaving breast cancer screenings and immunizations at no cost. Moreover, the new law allows allowing young people to remain on their parents' insurance plan until age 26, a boon to young people and their families.

In honor of this historic anniversary, Planned Parenthood is promoting a short animation video narrated by the actress Julianne Moore to highlight the positive benefits for women in the new health care law. You can watch the video here.

"We are launching our online video so that more women can learn about the new benefits for them in the health care law and understand how it helps them access affordable care, especially lifesaving preventive care such as cancer screenings at no cost. When women understand what this bill does for them, they will be thrilled to know that they are no longer forced to struggle on their own against an often unfair health care system," said Richards.

In addition, Planned Parenthood is educating its millions of supporters about a crucial provision in the health care law that is still a year away from being decided. This provision would ensure that all FDA-approved contraception would be covered as preventive care, and allow women to fully access the birth control method of their choice without co-pays.

While Planned Parenthood celebrates the many benefits in the new law, it continues to oppose the abortion provisions in the Affordable Care Act. The new law sets up a complicated system requiring two separate payments from individuals, one for abortion coverage and one for all other health care coverage. Fortunately, the new health care law does not include the complete and total ban on private health insurance coverage for abortion that Planned Parenthood helped successfully defeat. That means health plans will still be able to offer comprehensive insurance coverage for reproductive health care, including abortion, as long as private funds are used to pay for such coverage.

Among the key provisions of the new health law that go into effect today:

-guaranteeing that preventive care, including lifesaving screenings for breast and cervical cancer, and immunizations, are covered at without co-pays

-ending insurance abuses such as denying coverage because of pre-existing conditions for children and dropping individuals after they become sick

-expanding coverage for young adults by allowing them to stay on their parents' health plan until age 26

-providing 75 million dollars annually for fact-based sex education and teen pregnancy prevention.