Goodbye Obamacare, Hello... Obamacare?

The Affordable Care Act did wonders for women’s reproductive health during Obama’s administration. In 2010, when Obama signed the Affordable Care Act into law, he did really set forth a revolution that would be largely accepted in the United States as women became more in control of their health, their bodies, and, importantly, their reproductive rights.

The Affordable Care Act (Obamacare), according to the Center for Reproductive Rights, expanded coverage to female preventative health, which includes contraception, cancer screening, STI testing, primary care visits, and prenatal and post-partum care, which could be both physical and emotional. It even allowed for both annual well-woman checks and birth control to be covered without copay, which is extremely important in women’s health.

Trump had decided from the get-go of becoming president that under his governance, the ACA would no longer stand, partly due to his conservative viewpoint toward abortion.

NY Mag has stated that approximately 22 million people could lose their healthcare under Trump’s administration and the rollback of Obamacare – and the people most likely to be affected by this change are residents of lower-income areas, which could create a harsh cycle in an area that already suffers from poverty and low health. The Urban Institute’s Center on Society and Health published a report that established a correlative relationship between lower income and a higher reporting of poor health and likelihood of disease.

Trump also wants to defund Planned Parenthood, which he has acknowledged spends the VAST majority of its money on non-abortion related services – and cutting PP funding can have devastating results. Planned Parenthood is a large provider of STI testing and treatment, but the United States continues to have devastatingly high occurrence rates. Cutting this funding would not only be highly detrimental to these rates, but also would not decrease abortions by any means. Historically, banning abortions has just increased the number of unsafe abortions.

Image courtesy of FactCheck.org

 

Another concern is the controversial comments that Trump and Pence have made about Roe vs. Wade and their desire to overturn this critical Supreme Court ruling. Following the death of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, the 2016 election became all the more contentious as people became aware that the winner of the election would also be the nominator of the swing vote on the Supreme Court – essentially, whoever emerged victorious would also have control over the tone of the Supreme Court for the next however many years until a seat became available.

Additionally, Trump has expressed support for the Susan B. Anthony List (Don’t be fooled – Susan B. Anthony did wonders for women’s suffrage, but unfortunately this organization is completely anti-abortion). The funny thing that NY Mag reported on is that the SBA is completely misinformed in the platform they support, stating that they oppose the use of emergency contraception and IUDs which they believe can cause early abortion. This is completely false.

Don’t panic yet, though, if you’re worried about Trump rolling back women’s reproductive rights, because he hasn’t indicated any legislation coming up about this kind of thing in the near future. His current focus is his healthcare plan which failed. Hard.

If you’ve been following the news recently, it was publicized that the Republicans in Congress pulled out their decision about how to overhaul American healthcare because it did not have enough votes, which was a major loss for Trump and a slash to his confidence in leadership.

In an interview with Mary Agnes Carey, a senior correspondent for Kaiser Health News, Carey expressed that although Obamacare has its flaws – including a significant hike in the price of premiums, it has not “exploded” like President Trump has alleged. Carey stated that the major issue is due to people opting out of coverage, especially young people, and then when they get sick, the price is much higher. Essentially, it costs less to be preventative than it costs to not pay up front and then have to pay for treatment – and people that disregard this mentality are a major component in the rising prices.

Essentially, this loss for Trump still leaves a lot of loose ends out – especially regarding the future of women’s reproductive health. Ideally, women’s reproductive rights would remain protected and certain things would be covered by insurance, but we don’t live in an ideal world.