White House Proposes That Health Insurance Fully Cover Over-The-Counter Birth Control | EUROtoday

WASHINGTON (AP) — Millions of individuals with non-public medical health insurance would be capable to decide up over-the-counter strategies like condoms, the “morning after” capsule and contraception drugs totally free beneath a brand new rule the White House proposed on Monday.

Right now, well being insurers should cowl the price of prescribed contraception, together with prescription contraception and even condoms that medical doctors have issued a prescription for. But the brand new rule would broaden that protection, permitting tens of millions of individuals on non-public medical health insurance to select up free condoms, contraception drugs, or “morning after” drugs from native storefronts and not using a prescription.

The proposal comes days earlier than Election Day, as Vice President Kamala Harris affixes her presidential marketing campaign to a promise of increasing girls’s well being care entry within the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s choice to undo nationwide abortion rights two years in the past. Harris has sought to craft a definite distinction from her Republican challenger, Donald Trump, who appointed a few of the judges who issued that ruling.

“The proposed rule we announce today would expand access to birth control at no additional cost for millions of consumers,” Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra stated in a press release. “Bottom line: women should have control over their personal health care decisions. And issuers and providers have an obligation to comply with the law.”

The emergency contraceptives that individuals on non-public insurance coverage would be capable to entry with out prices embody levonorgestrel, a capsule that must be taken instantly after intercourse to stop being pregnant and is extra generally recognized by the model title “Plan B.”

Without a health care provider’s prescription, girls might pay as a lot as $50 for a pack of the drugs. And girls who delay shopping for the remedy with a view to get a health care provider’s prescription might jeopardize the capsule’s effectiveness, since it’s more than likely to stop a being pregnant inside 72 hours after intercourse.

If carried out, the brand new rule would additionally require insurers to completely bear the price of the once-a-day Opill, a brand new over-the-counter contraception capsule that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration accepted final 12 months. A one-month provide of the drugs prices $20.

Federal mandates for personal medical health insurance to cowl contraceptive care have been first launched with the Affordable Care Act, which required plans to select up the price of FDA-approved contraception that had been prescribed by a health care provider as a preventative service.

The proposed rule wouldn’t impression these on Medicaid, the insurance coverage program for the poorest Americans. States are largely left to design their very own guidelines round Medicaid protection for contraception, and few cowl over-the-counter strategies like Plan B or condoms.