Making the Most of the Affordable Care Act's Contraceptive Coverage Mandate for Privately-Insured Women

Abstract

Under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 (ACA), most women of reproductive age with private health insurance have, or will soon have, first-dollar coverage of contraception and contraceptive counseling. The need for contraceptive coverage is great, because most American families want two children, resulting in the average woman spending three decades of her reproductive life trying to avoid pregnancy (Guttmacher Institute, 2012; Finer & Philbin, 2014). Contraceptive coverage without cost sharing is a sea change in women’s health insurance. This policy change has the potential to dramatically shift contraceptive use patterns, to reduce the U.S. unintended pregnancy ratedwhich stands at approximately half of all pregnancies (Finer & Zolna, 2014)dand to improve the health of women and families. In this commentary, we argue that realizing the potential of this policy change requires more action on the part of public health practitioners, insurers, health care providers, and researchers than is currently evident, andwe offer some suggestions for making the most of first-dollar contraceptive coverage.