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What's in the national health care reform bill?

In the spring of 2010, historic legislation became law to extend health care coverage to tens of millions of women and families. The bill also:

• Guarantees access to affordable, lifesaving screenings for breast and cervical cancer.
• Protects women against gender discrimination by private insurers.
• Ends the practice of dropping coverage because of pre-existing conditions, like pregnancy.
• Significantly increases insurance coverage of reproductive health care, including family planning.

Without a doubt, health care reform is a step forward for women, and a giant step toward a healthier America. 

Looking for more? Check out our Activist Toolkit for more details.

Nelson Language

Planned Parenthood Delaware is very concerned, however, about the language in the final bill, known as the Nelson provision, which would make it much more difficult for individuals to find and purchase private health insurance that covers abortion.

The Nelson abortion provision requires health plans that cover abortion to collect two private payments from all enrollees — one payment for abortion coverage and one payment for all other coverage.  Health plans must also implement a complex accounting system with separate allocation accounts for private funds to ensure that abortion care is only paid for with private funds.

This issue must be watched closely and changes to the legislation may be required.
  

Did Planned Parenthood advocate for the bill?

Planned Parenthoods across the country mounted an aggressive and extensive grassroots campaign for women’s health and health care reform. We generated more than 650,000 e-mails to Congress. We ran hundreds of phone banks that produced a total of 39,184 calls to Congress. We recruited hundreds of volunteers — 23 percent of whom were youth — to staff those phone banks and attend key events. We sent more than 32,520 postcards and petitions to Congress. And we organized, on short notice, successful and highly visible lobby days in DC in November, December, and January, attracting supporters from around the country.