A new study in NEJM finds that after Texas excluded Planned Parenthood and other providers affiliated with abortion providers from its family-planning program for low-income women, the program paid for fewer women to get some of the most effective forms of contraception.
Recent pieces address late cancer diagnoses; the need for confidentiality when teens seek contraception; pollution’s impact on Mossville, Louisiana; and more.
Women's Health
Private foundations fund another year of Colorado’s successful family planning program
A group of foundations has provided another year of funding for a program that has greatly expanded access to IUDs and allowed the state’s teen pregnancy rate to plummet. Will the Colorado legislature start picking up the tab next year?
The Colorado Family Planning Initative has helped thousands of low-income Colorado women get long-acting contraception and avoid unplanned pregnancies. But the program’s foundation funding has run out, and the state’s legislature has declined to provide more.
Affordable Care Act
In wake of Affordable Care Act, dramatic declines in out-of-pocket spending on contraception
Thanks to the Affordable Care Act, American women are saving hundreds of dollars on birth control, according to the first study to document the impact of health reform on prescription contraception spending.
The Republican-led House Appropriations Committee has produced a spending bill that would eliminate funding for Title X, a program that provides family-planning services to millions of low-income women and preventive care to women and men.
Fifty years ago, the Supreme Court issued the landmark Griswold v. Connecticut decision, which struck down a Connecticut law that criminalized the encouragement or use of contraception. Women’s access to effective contraception has improved a lot since then — but we still have a long way to go.
After the Colorado Family Planning Initiative (CFPI) started providing free IUDs and implants to low-income women at family planning clinics, the teen birth rate and abortion rate dropped sharply.
The American Academy of Pediatrics published a “Contraceptives for Adolescents” policy statement that advises pediatricians to consider long-acting reversible contraception (LARC) methods as first-line contraceptive choices for adolescents. Recent research shows that women, including teens, will choose LARCs when cost is not a barrier and when healthcare providers can help patients choose and access the contraceptives that best meet their needs.
The Affordable Care Act has given many women new options for health-insurance coverage and preventive services. A new Kaiser Family Foundation survey finds both reasons for optimism and areas for improvement when it comes to women’s health and the ACA.