In 2012, this here blog celebrated the Obamacare mandate that essentially made birth control free to women with insurance. Under the Affordable Care Act, insurers are required to offer birth control without a copay, because it turns out sex is a fun thing that everyone likes to do. Now that the new president/twitter addict has brought his Tasmanian Devil political style to the White House, it’s unclear which parts of Obamacare might survive and which will get ripped off like the Band-Aid you also won’t be able to support under the Republican’s so-far-nonexistent healthcare replacement. But New York has your back on the birth control issue.
While millions of women marched against Trump around the country and globe this weekend, Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced new state insurance regulations that will require insurers to keep offering free birth control and access to free medically necessary abortions.
“Women deserve to make a fair wage and the same salary as any man, they deserve to work in an office free of sexual harassment, they deserve comprehensive paid family leave and they deserve control over their health and reproductive decisions,” Cuomo said in a statement, according to the Times.
Even more than preserving parts of Obamacare, the state will go further and require insurers cover a three-month supply of contraception the first time a woman obtains it, and then a supply of up to 12 months, at no cost. Right now, only a one-month supply is usually available.
“We want women to know that even if there are changes in federal law, there aren’t going to be any disruptions to their coverage here in New York,” Alphonso David, the governor’s counsel, told the Times.
This certainly beats getting birth control in a vending machine.