We found that employer-sponsored coverage saved costs while reducing unwanted pregnancies and subsequent abortions.
In the early days of his tenure, President Trump took steps to repeal Obamacare and reintroduce the “global gag rule” – a heavily criticized policy that restricts US funding for health care providers in low-income countries that provide abortion counseling.
These early actions signal that it is prioritizing health care reform and restricting access to abortion. Earlier, Trump said he would keep the “strongest assets” of the Affordable Care Act: insurance against insurance discrimination for those with pre-existing conditions and the ability for young adults to stay insured with parents until the age of 26, which the ACA will keep should if he wants to improve health care and reduce abortions? Mandatory employer-sponsored contraception coverage.
As a refresher, the Court of Auditors includes a provision that preventive health benefits, including contraception, are to be included as a covered benefit in employer-funded insurance plans. This mandate has become a highly controversial part of the law.
Studies by the Guttmacher Institute and Princeton University and others show that contraception is a safe and inexpensive way to prevent unwanted or improperly managed pregnancies that can lead to subsequent abortions. At the societal level, contraception creates great value: it can improve the health of women and families, and reduce abortions, while saving women, insurers, and the government significant sums of money (recently estimated savings of $ 10.5 billion per year).
The cost-saving mechanism is simple: contraception reduces costs associated with unwanted pregnancies and abortions avoided by contraception. However, alongside fears of religious abuse, opponents fear that employer-sponsored coverage could lead to increased abortions, suggesting that a small number of contraceptives could lead to an abortion (a theory put forward by even pro-life clinical experts).
As researchers at the University of Washington studying the value of health programs, in collaboration with Dr. James Trussell, a senior research demographer at Princeton University’s Office of Population Research, developed a rigorous, peer-reviewed economic model for assessing the impact of employer-funded contraceptive insurance on costs and pregnancy outcomes, including abortion. The economic model was developed from the employer’s point of view to simulate pregnancy costs and outcomes in connection with private insurance coverage. It included information about birth control use and failure rates, pregnancy outcomes, marital status, and age, based on data from the National Survey of Family Growth.
We found that employer-sponsored coverage saved costs while reducing unwanted pregnancies and subsequent abortions. Lack of coverage would result in 33,200 unwanted pregnancies, 13,460 additional abortions, and a cost increase of more than $ 250 million per 1 million women.
Women are very price sensitive about contraceptive costs, which means that as their expenses increase (which would happen if their employer-funded insurance were to abandon contraception as an insured benefit), they are less likely to use contraception and are more likely to experience unwanted pregnancies and seek abortions – with the exact one Result (more abortions) that the Trump administration wants to avoid. In fact, one of the most effective and affordable ways to prevent abortions is through birth control at little or no cost to women.
According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, 59 percent of US women receive employer-funded insurance and could potentially be affected by mandate waiver. For low-income women in particular, the consequences of a lack of insurance cover for contraceptives could play an important role in reinforcing the cycle of poverty and economic stagnation that often goes hand in hand with unwanted pregnancies.
Maintaining the contraceptive mandate is good for women, good for employers, good for the budget and, we believe, also compatible with the pro-life movement. While Trump is considering keeping elements of the ACA, contraception coverage is a component he cannot overlook.
