health care reform
Health Care Reform: Making Women’s Health Care a Priority
Planned Parenthood believes that all Americans should be guaranteed access to quality, affordable health care.
As a trusted health care provider, Planned Parenthood knows firsthand how critical it is to expand access to health care coverage, including comprehensive reproductive health care.
Planned Parenthood health centers are part of an important network of community providers that includes local health departments, hospital outpatient clinics, and independent family planning clinics.
Community providers serve as a critical entry point into the health care system for millions of women. For millions of women the only doctor or nurse they see is one they visit at a health center like Planned Parenthood. With the economic downturn, these health centers have seen an increase in patients.
Today, more than six in 10 patients who receive care at a women’s health center like Planned Parenthood consider it their primary source of health care.
The vast majority of care — more than 90 percent— offered by Planned Parenthood of Illinois is preventive and primary. This includes contraception, routine gynecological exams, breast and cervical cancer screening, STD/HIV testing and the HPV vaccine.
As our nation’s economic crisis remains uncertain, more women are turning to women’s health centers for basic health care. Women of childbearing age spend 68 percent more in out-of-pocket health care costs than men, in part because of reproductive health-related needs. The number of women in need of publicly funded family planning services (currently 17.5 million) increased by more than one million (seven percent) between 2000 and 2006.
Today, one in four women who receives contraceptive care does so at a women’s health center. One in six women who obtains a Pap test or a pelvic exam does so at a women’s health center, as do one-third of women who receive counseling, testing, or treatment for sexually transmitted infections, including HIV.
Coverage of this basic health care, like the care Planned Parenthood provides, is essential, particularly during difficult economic times, to giving women the tools they need to protect and support their families.
Health plans participating in any health insurance exchange should include community health providers like Planned Parenthood in their network. This type of protection is a fundamental part of solving provider access issues that will come with expanding coverage.
Community-based providers often face significant challenges in being included in health insurance networks, so it’s critical that Congress put these protections in place to ensure that Americans can access trusted providers in the communities where they live.
You can do your part to help ensure that women’s reproductive health care doesn’t get tossed aside in the health care reform debate by writing a letter to the editor of your local paper, or simply by talking with friends, family, or co-workers. It’s critical that we all set the record straight and educate others about women's health and community providers like Planned Parenthood.
Join Planned Parenthood of Illinois to support health care reform! Send an email to volunteer@ppil.org to sign up for a rally, town hall meeting, or phone bank.
For more ways to become involved with health care reform, visit the national Planned Parenthood Action Fund website.
Health Care Reform Ad
Making Women’s Health Care a Priority
My Planned Parenthood: Patients, Staff and Supporters Share their Stories
