Family Planning

On January 23, President Donald Trump reinstated the Mexico City Policy, which stipulates that in order to receive U.S. global health funding, foreign non-governmental organizations (NGOs) must certify that they will not perform or actively promote abortion as a method of family planning using funds from any source. A new explainer…

Public programs and private health insurance now pay for the vast majority of contraceptive services and supplies for women. However, complex and shifting regulations shaped by state and federal policy, legal challenges to the Affordable Care Act’s contraceptive coverage provision, and other factors affect the scope of coverage. New resources…

Insurance coverage of contraceptive services has been the focus of policy attention by state and federal policymakers, as well as in the courts, over the past two decades. This issue brief explains the rules for private insurance coverage of contraceptives at the federal and state level and discusses key issues regarding the provision and coverage of contraception by private insurance plans, including the impact of the Affordable Care Act (ACA).

This fact sheet reviews how coverage of contraceptives varies between private insurance under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and publicly-funded programs, including Medicaid, Medicare, TRICARE, the Indian Health Service, and Title X funded clinics.

As Medicaid marks its 50th year, the program has unquestionably become the mainstay of health coverage for low-income women in the nation. Since its inception, its role for women has continued to evolve and expand, but the passage of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) swung open the doors for Medicaid to serve even more low-income women who lack access to private or employer-based insurance. This is because the ACA enabled states to finally eliminate Medicaid’s historical “categorical” requirements, which had essentially shut out women and men without dependent children.

A new Kaiser Family Foundation report released today finds how health insurance carriers are interpreting and implementing the Affordable Care Act’s contraceptive coverage requirement varies, limiting contraceptive options for some women. The ACA requires most private health insurance plans to cover a range of preventive services for women, including prescribed…

The Affordable Care Act (ACA) requires most private health insurance plans to provide coverage for a broad range of preventive services including Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved prescription contraceptives and services for women. Since the implementation of the ACA contraceptive coverage requirement in 2012, over 200 corporations have filed lawsuits claiming that including coverage for contraceptives or opting for an “accommodation” from the federal government violates their religious beliefs. This brief explains the legal issues raised by the nonprofit litigation and discusses the impact of the Hobby Lobby decision on the current litigation.

New HHS clarification on ACA contraceptive coverage requirement specifies that insurance plans must cover at no cost to women all of the 18 contraceptive methods approved by the FDA.  If a provider recommends a specific option or product, plans must cover it at no cost as well. Minimum Contraceptive Coverage…

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) requires most private plans to provide coverage for women’s preventive health care, including all prescribed FDA-approved contraceptive services, without cost sharing. To better understand how this provision is being implemented by health plans, Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF) staff, with the Lewin Group, reviewed the insurance plan coverage policies for 12 prescribed contraceptive methods (excluding oral contraceptives). This report presents information from 20 different insurance carriers in five states (California, Georgia, Michigan, New Jersey, and Texas) about how they are applying reasonable medical management (RMM) techniques in their coverage of women’s contraceptive services. The different forms of female birth control reviewed in this report include the contraceptive ring, the patch, injections, implants, intrauterine devices (IUDs), and sterilization.

This brief reviews the role of Medicaid in financing and enabling access to family planning services for low-income women; discusses how states have expanded access to these services with Medicaid; and highlights future programmatic challenges in the context of the health care delivery and coverage reforms resulting from the Affordable Care Act (ACA).