 Contraceptive
Coverage
S 1200 Endorsement
Letter
cc: Senator Harry Reid
May 26, 1999
The Honorable Olympia Snowe
2421 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515
Dear Senator Snowe:
On behalf of the American College of
Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG), an organization
representing more than 39,000 physicians dedicated to
improving womenís health care, I am writing to express our
full support for the legislation you are introducing, the
"Equity in Prescription Insurance and
Contraceptive Coverage Act
of 1999." By requiring insurers that offer prescription drug
benefits to cover prescription contraceptives, your
legislation will ensure that this important womenís health
care benefit is treated equitably by insurance plans. Further,
your legislation also would require coverage for outpatient
contraceptive services, which are a critical component of
womenís health care. The information and advice about
contraception that women receive from their physicians are
critical to ensuring effective use of contraceptives as well
as to ensuring good reproductive health for women.
As womenís health care physicians, ACOG
believes contraception is medically necessary to providing
quality health care to women. A woman needs contraception to
protect both her health and quality of life. Contraceptives
afford a woman the opportunity to choose the number as well as
the timing of her pregnancies. Most women can become pregnant
from the time they are teenagers until they are in their late
forties -- meaning a woman can become pregnant for thirty or
more years. A woman cannot opt out of the need to control her
fertility during the three decades prior to menopause without
risking multiple pregnancies. For some women with serious
medical conditions, controlling their fertility is a matter of
life or death. In addition, appropriate timing between
pregnancies and limitations on family size, as a result of the
use of contraceptives, are closely related to improved infant
and maternal health. According to a recent article in the New
England Journal of Medicine, "infants conceived 18 to 23
months after a previous live birth had the lowest risks of
adverse perinatal outcomes." For all of these reasons, access
to contraceptives is critical in achieving healthy families,
both in medical and economic terms.
The need to require equitable treatment of
contraceptives by health insurers is clear. ACOG applauds your
commitment to equity in womenís health care by ensuring that
insurance plans treat prescription contraceptives the same as
other prescription drugs. We look forward to working with you
to achieve this important goal.
+
Sincerely,
Ralph W. Hale, MD
Executive Vice
President |
