CPA’s State Leaders Move Contraceptive Equity Issue

Contraceptive equity bill introductions "are the most striking examples of the power of women’s leadership."–CPA President and CEO Linda Tarr-Whelan

While health insurance companies scrambled to cover Viagra upon FDA approval in 1998, many have dragged their feet for years in covering contraceptives. State legislators, working with CPA, are leading the charge to change that inequity.

In 1998 only Maryland successfully enacted a law to address the imbalance in prescription drug coverage, and still has the most comprehensive policy on this issue. Over 12 states have introduced contraceptive equity bills in the 1999 session, bringing the total number of states to consider such legislation in the past two years to 28. CPA’s leaders have been at the forefront of this struggle, adding states such as Nevada, North Carolina, Connecticut and Georgia to the ranks of Maryland.

"[W]e were in the bitterest of fights," said Georgia state Representative Nan Grogan Orrock, who sponsored the recent 1999 law on contraceptive coverage in Georgia. "The right wing," she said,"pales beside the business community," which opposed increasing employers’ costs by adding contraceptive coverage to health plans.

Orrock added that conversations about how to move the contraceptive equity issue began among CPA’s women legislators at CPA’s 1998 Grassroots Leadership Retreat in Portland, Maine. The issue was also the focus of a roundtable discussion on Contraceptive Equity and Reproductive Health at the 1998 Summit on the States in December 1998.

Women’s leadership has played a critical role in moving the issue forward and increasing visibility. The increase in contraceptive equity bill introductions across the states is "the most striking example in the legislative sessions that have just finished of the power of women’s leadership," said CPA President and CEO Linda Tarr-Whelan.

An uphill battle remains in the struggle to cover equally women’s and men’s reproductive health. In particular, conscience clauses that permit health care providers to refuse to provide treatment on the basis of religious or moral beliefs can deny patients access to medically necessary information, referrals and services. Two states, Oregon and Louisiana, introduced bills that take conscience clauses to a broad, new level, allowing pharmacists to refuse to fill prescriptions if filling the prescriptions would violate their personal or religious beliefs. Neither bill advanced in the 1999 session.

For more information on contraceptive equity in the state legislatures, contact Sheri Brady at CPA ([email protected]).