Wednesday, May 31, 2017

Trump's plan allows employers to eliminate birth control from insurance plans

Ready for another bundle of joy?
Today, a Trump Administration plan leaked that will let America's employers make birth control unaffordable for employees by eliminating it from insurance plans. 1 From Wal-Mart to your small, local restaurant, a woman's birth control will become her boss' business. Thanks to the Affordable Care Act and Obama Administration actions, 55 million women accessed birth control without out-of-pocket costs like co-pays--including $1.4 billion on the pill alone in 2013.2

Now, hundreds of thousands of women could lose access to no-cost birth control if Trump's license to discriminate becomes final. But America's employers can step in and become part of the resistance by guaranteeing they will not end birth control coverage. We know that consumer power can successfully pressure corporations to do the right thing. If tens of thousands push three of America's largest employers with a strong base of women employees and customers, we can force them to maintain birth control coverage for millions of working women--and other employers will be forced to follow suit to stay competitive.

Can you sign the petition? Tell Target, Disney, Merck, and other major corporations: "Resist Trump's attacks on women. Pledge to maintain insurance coverage of birth control for your employees."

Sign the petition

It's not just employers that are given a license to discriminate. Colleges, universities, and even insurance companies can cite religious grounds as a reason to control a woman's reproductive health and economic security. Before the Affordable Care Act, many women paid over $1,000 a year for birth control they rely on. So for them, this is no small change--like a $100 per month rent increase or a $1,000 bill to fix a car. More than 1 in 3 women have stated they have struggled to afford birth control at some point in their lives.3

Under Trump's rule, the reason a woman uses birth control is irrelevant--whether for family planning or menstrual cramps, treating endometriosis or pelvic inflammatory disease. Ninety-nine percent of women will use birth control at some point in their lives, 58 percent of them for a reason other than preventing pregnancy.4 President Trump wants to take away the respect women deserve to control their own economic future. America's employers need to make a choice: do they stand with President Trump and his attacks on women, or their own employees and customers?
-- the UltraViolet team

Sources:
2. Private Insurance Coverage of Contraception, Kaiser Family Foundation, December 7, 2016

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