Many insurance companies don't cover birth control, but that could soon change. If so, there's something you can do about it. If your employer pays for preventive medicine such as vaccinations or weight-loss drugs, they should also pay for birth control, a federal commission ruled last week. Although the decision applies only to two women who complained to the EEOC that their employers weren't covering their birth control while they covered other employees' medical bills, employers could use it as a guide in structuring their insurance plans. And some 64 percent of American women of childbearing age use contraceptives and foot the bills themselves, according to the Alan Guttmacher Institute, a reproductive research group.
Health insurers say they're the ones getting a bad rap.
Coverage is decided by employers who choose which plans workers receive, said Richard Coorsh, a spokesman for the Health Insurance Association of America, a coalition of 294 of the nation's leading health insurers. But the industry in general is skeptical about tacking on contraceptive coverage, he said, because it would end up making health insurance more expensive and, as a result, more inaccessible. Excuses, excuses The women's equity organization heard similar arguments last year when it conducted a study of Washington State insurers and employers to determine why contraceptives weren't being covered. But the Kaiser Family Foundation, a national health care philanthropy, said this isn't true. In 1998, a Kaiser poll also found that three quarters of Americans agreed with policies to require contraceptive coverage, even if that meant premiums rose as a result.