White House: Colleges must cover birth control for students

[kpete]

Source: The Hill

White House: Colleges must cover birth control for students
By Sam Baker - 03/16/12 05:14 PM ET

Most universities will have to cover birth control in their students’ health plans, the Obama administration said Friday.

The Health and Human Services Department said student health plans will be treated like employees’ plans, meaning they will have to comply with new requirements under healthcare reform — including the requirement to provide contraception without charging a copay.


The contraception mandate has sparked intense criticism from some religious groups and Republican lawmakers. They say it violates employers’ religious freedoms by forcing them to provide a service they find immoral.

Religious universities will treat their student plans the same as their employees’ plans, administration officials said Friday. That means they will not have to directly offer contraception in their plans, but students and workers will be able to get birth control from their insurance companies without a copay.

Read more: http://thehill.com/blogs/healthwatch/health-reform-implementation/216485-white-house-says-colleges-must-cover-birth-control-for-students

[bluecoat_fan]

1. Maybe students will come out to vote once repubs go after this(nt).

[babylonsister]

2. I love it! Keep pushing that envelope; make the rethugs squirm and

express themselves. Let's see how many more women they can piss off!

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

6. And follow up with a new sex education policy, exclusively for parochial schools

[Arugula Latte]

3. Hell yeah!

[dkf]

4. So why do we need to pay a copay for any rx?

I have to say this is kind of odd. Birth control is more important than blood pressure meds? Weird.

[RC]

5. Yeah, what's up with co-pay?

Either the insurance covers it or it doesn't. Usually the insurance does not fully cover it anyway, so bill me later, OK!

[SheilaT]

8. Copays for prescriptions and doctors visits

are simply standard in our system. In another response the question was raised asking if birth control is more vital than any other specific medication. Certainly, for someone who needs some other med, and not birth control, it seems hugely unfair. We do keep on circling back to the need for a single payer system, with all basic services covered.

[wordpix]

7. NOOOO!!!! We must have 9 billion people on the planet by 2020!

To hell with a finite planet and resources, we need infinite numbers of people to destroy the planet completely.

Why do it halfway?