Guest columnist
How reproductive health care is dealt with in national health care reform is no small matter. And who provides this critical care is still to be determined.
For communities like ours, local health centers are where many people turn for trusted health care. In North Carolina, more than a half-million low-income women need family planning services. Community health providers, like Planned Parenthood, often serve as an entry point for essential health care needs.
For more than 90 years women have been visiting Planned Parenthood for their health care needs. The vast majority of our patients (75 percent) live at or below 150 percent of the federal poverty level earning less than $32,000 for a family of four, making Planned Parenthood an integral part of America's health care safety net. Ninety-seven percent of Planned Parenthood's health services are focused on preventive care to keep women, men and teens healthy, and to help women and couples plan their families.
And Planned Parenthood isn't the only health center women rely on for preventive care.
Today, one in four women who receives contraceptive care does so at a women's health center. One in six 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. This basic health care is essential, particularly during difficult economic times, to give women the tools they need to protect and support their families. This is particularly true when you consider that women of childbearing age spend a remarkable 68 percent more in out-of-pocket health care costs than men, in part because of reproductive health-related needs.
As Congress works to enact health care reform, they must make women's health a priority and ensure that productive health care is covered. While this fact should be a given, the truth is that family planning and reproductive health care are still not fully part of mainstream health care, even though 98 percent of women use contraception at some point in their lives.
Two recent reports underscore the need for women's health to be an integral part of health care reform.
A recent report by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services entitled "Roadblocks to Health Care: Why the Current Health Care System Does Not Work for Women" states that "women are more vulnerable to high health care costs ... [because] women's reproductive health requires more regular contact with health care providers, including yearly Pap tests, mammograms and obstetric care."
And a 2009 survey conducted for the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists found that women are delaying their annual exams as a result of the economic downturn.
These reports demonstrate the importance of ensuring comprehensive health care reform that meets the needs of American women and their families. To do this, health plans participating in any health insurance exchange must include community health providers in their network.
Protecting community health providers including local health departments, hospital outpatient clinic and independent family planning clinics is fundamental to solving provider access issues that will come with expanding coverage and ensuring Americans can access trusted providers wherever they live.
Each year, Planned Parenthood health centers across the country perform nearly one-million Pap tests, identifying 93,000 women at risk of developing cervical cancer. And we provide more than 850,000 breast exams a year. In North Carolina alone Planned Parenthood provides these preventive health care services to more than 22,490 patients each year at its eight health centers across the state. Since the economic downturn last fall, Planned Parenthood Health Systems has seen an 11 percent increase in patient visits. And, not surprisingly, we have seen a 24.5 percent increase in overall contraceptive sales with a 76 percent increase in long-acting contraceptives such as Depo Provera, Implanon and IUDs. This increase in utilization comes just as funding streams have become more precarious.
All of the bills under consideration in Congress add important protections to women's health care: Insurers could not charge women more for coverage based on their gender, domestic violence would not be considered a pre-existing and maternity care would be required coverage.
But, opponents to health care reform continue to attempt to distort these protections in order to undermine the proposed bills in Congress. For instance, last month, Sen. John Kyl of Arizona stated in a hearing that he didn't need maternity care so requiring an insurance policy to carry something that he didn't need would just make policies more expensive. He didn't say whether or not he would support requiring insurers to cover Viagra, prostate exams or testicular cancer.
Let's hope other members of Congress ignore such ridiculous arguments. If health care reform is to live up to its name, American women must have access to reproductive health care and women's health providers.
Melissa Reed is vice president for public policy at Planned Parenthood Health Systems Inc. in Raleigh.
