Biden Proposes Free Birth Control Coverage in 2025 Credit | REUTERS
United States: The Biden’s government also plans to introduce a new rule so that women could buy over the counter birth control pill and other contraceptives using their private insurance for free as informed by the White House on Monday.
The rule which builds upon a federal requirement that the health insurers under the ACA cover preventive care services without the patients’ contribution, has been proposed by Departments of Health and Human Services, Labor and the Treasury and is set to kick off in 2025 if passed.
No-Cost Contraceptives Without a Prescription
“This rule, once finalized, will expand contraception coverage for 52 million women of reproductive age with private health insurance,” White House Gender Policy Council Director Jennifer Klein said during a briefing, as reported by Reuters.
“For the first time, women would be able to obtain over-the-counter contraception without a prescription at no additional cost, and health plans would have to cover even more prescribed contraceptives without cost sharing,” she said.
Opill, by Perrigo Co (PRGO.N), is the only daily contraceptive pill approved for over-the-counter use by the US FDA, but the proposed rule relates to another category of OTC contraceptives, including emergency contraceptives such as the Plan B morning-after pill, spermicides, birth control sponge and condoms.
FDA-Approved Contraceptives
Additionally, the regulation would mandate that insurance plans provide cost-free coverage for all FDA-approved contraceptive medications and some devices, such as IUDs, in certain situations.
The rule will also provide hormonal contraceptives that defeat any FDA-approved contraceptive drug or drug-led combination product like IUDs free of charging, save for cases where the plan will cover another therapeutic equivalent without charging or where plans will proclaim that OTC contraceptives are governed by cost charges or prescription.
It is forwarded two weeks to the 2024 presidentialcy election in a country where gestation was recently made into focus via Supreme Court whereby women were denuded of their constitutional right to abortion under Roth v. Wade in 2022. It is therefore not surprising that Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee has given access to abortion one of the key points of her campaign, as reported by Reuters.
Political Implications
The former President Donald Trump, has boasted of having nominated three out of the conservative justices who made the ruling but has since stated that abortion laws should be left to individual states in the U.S., but has not called for the outright national ban that may jeopardize his chances of clinching swing voters in the November election.
