Republicans Are Waging A 'Coordinated Attack' On Women’s Health Care

It’s almost as if the GOP doesn’t like women very much. The Republican health care bill, which narrowly passed the House on Thursday, would both increase the cost of having a baby and return the U.S. to the days when simply being a woman was considered a pre-existing condition ― meaning we could be charged far more than men for health care or simply denied coverage. Meanwhile, a religious “liberty” executive order expected out of the White House this week would let companies opt out of covering birth control because of their religious beliefs. “This is a coordinated attack on women’s access to health care,” said Rachel Easter, counsel on the reproductive rights team at the National Women’s Law Center. Lower-income women would especially bear the brunt of the GOP’s bill, which also seeks to defund Planned Parenthood, where the majority of patients rely on public assistance for health care, writes HuffPost’s Laura Bassett. The bill would also put work requirements into Medicaid, which would make it very difficult for women seeking to recover from childbirth-related complications.   Rolling back the Obamacare requirement that health insurers cover everyone, including people with so-called “pre-existing conditions,” is particularly punishing. Before the law passed in 2010, insurers could ― and did ― deny coverage to pregnant women, women with postpartum depression or women who experien...
Source: Healthy Living - The Huffington Post - Category: Consumer Health News Source Type: news