Shaheen, Hassan Join Senate Democrats in Introducing Urgent Legislation to Safeguard Key Women’s Preventive Health Care Services from Administration Attacks on Birth Control Mandate
Shaheen, Hassan Join Senate Democrats in Introducing Urgent Legislation to Safeguard Key Women's Preventive Health Care Services from Administration Attacks on Birth Control Mandate
**The Save Women's Preventive Care Act would help shield preventive health care services-cancer screenings, birth control, domestic violence screenings, and more-from attacks by Trump administration**
**Senators say legislation is urgently needed, especially in light of political attacks on women's health and rights by President Trump, Congressional Republicans**
WASHINGTON - U.S. Senators Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) and Maggie Hassan (D-NH) joined 45 other Senate Democrats to introduce new legislation, theSave Women's Preventive Care Act,to ensure that coverage for preventive health care services, like breast cancer screenings, birth control, and domestic violence screenings, can't be revised or rolled back by the Trump administration. Today, 55 million women nationwide have access to birth control, screening and counseling for domestic violence, breast cancer screening, and other essential health care without any out-of-pocket costs due to the Affordable Care Act (ACA).
"Ensuring all women have access to affordable preventative healthcare should be a no-brainer, yet yesterday's vote by House Republicans to repeal the Affordable Care Act and the executive order issued by President Trump allowing employers to target women's health demonstrate that we cannot take women's access to healthcare for granted," said Senator Jeanne Shaheen. "The Save Women's Preventive Care Act would make permanent the protections that Granite State women have come to rely on for affordable well-woman care, contraception, breast cancer screenings, counseling for domestic violence, among other critical preventative services. Women's healthcare shouldn't be a partisan issue."
"Time and again, the Trump Administration and Washington Republicans have pursued a partisan agenda focused on restricting women's access to critical preventative health services, including cancer screenings, birth control, domestic violence screenings, and more," said Senator Maggie Hassan. "I will always fight to protect a woman's right to make her own health care decisions and chart her own destiny, and I will work to pass this important legislation that will guarantee that women continue to have access to essential preventative health services without any out-of-pocket costs."
TheSave Women's Preventive Care Actis supported by the following organizations:Academy of Breastfeeding Medicine, Academy of Women's Health, American Association of Birth Center, American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, American Medical Student Association, American Nurses Association, American Psychological Association, American Public Health Association, American Society for Reproductive Medicine, Association of Reproductive Health Professionals, GLMA: Health Professionals Advancing LGBT Equality, March of Dimes, NARAL Pro-Choice America, National Alliance to Advance Adolescent Health, National Association of County and City Health Officials, National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy, National Coalition of STD Directors, National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Association, Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Society of Gynecologic Oncology, and Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine.
FACT SHEET-SAVE WOMEN'S PREVENTIVE CARE ACT
About the Women's Preventive Services Guidelines
The Affordable Care Act ("ACA") helps make preventive care affordable and accessible to all Americans by requiring health plans to cover certain preventive services without cost-sharing-meaning insurers can no longer charge patients a co-pay, coinsurance, or deductible for those highly effective services.
During debate on the ACA, the Senate added a provision to ensure that women have access to additional preventive services that are necessary to address their unique health needs. The ACA directed the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) to enumerate the comprehensive set of women's preventive services that should be covered without cost-sharing. The resulting HRSA guidelines ensure that women can receive comprehensive preventive care services.
To develop the original 2011 guidelines, HRSA commissioned a study by theNational Academies of Medicine(NAM, formerly theInstitute of Medicine) and leading experts on women's health care regarding what preventive services best support women's health and well-being. HRSA adopted the 2011 NAM recommendations in the original Women's Preventive Services Guidelines. In 2016, HRSA awarded a cooperative agreement to a coalition of expert academic, clinician, and other organizations to update the Guidelines to better reflect best clinical practice and advances in science.
The Save Women's Preventive Care Act Overview
TheSave Women's Preventive Care Actcodifies the December 2016 update to the ACA's Women's Preventive Services Guidelines issued by HRSA and related guidance on implementation of the coverage requirements. The legislation guarantees women continued access to these key services without cost-sharing. Once signed into the law, theSave Women's Preventive Care Actwould prevent the Trump Administration from revising or rolling back parts of the Women's Preventive Services Guidelines.
The bill also codifies the HHS birth control accommodation as of January 1, 2017, which allows women in certain jobs to continue to benefit from the ACA's birth control provision without requiring their religiously-affiliated employer to provide or pay for it.
The following preventive services will be guaranteed by this bill:
·Lactation support and counseling
·Screening and counseling for domestic violence
·Screening for gestational diabetes
·HPV DNA testing
·Counseling on STIs
·Counseling and screening for HIV
·All contraception methods approved by the FDA
·Breast cancer screening
·Well Woman visits
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