Yesterday we met with Lee Hasselbacher who is a policy coordinator from the Family Planning and Contraceptive Research section at the University of Chicago. We had a very informative meeting and she was able to help the high schoolers come up with multiple ideas on how their projects might be implemented. It was great to see them very involved and asking questions. She also gave us a rundown on the innovative new ways they are looking into to teach sex education.
She also talked about how, come this August, health insurers will be required to cover birth control along with other women’s preventive services with no co-pay. I had heard about this before, but was unsure it would actually happen. Now just weeks away from the start date it seems like this will be a reality. While some women may not see this benefit for months I think it is a great step forward as some forms of birth control can run up to $40/month, and more effective forms of birth control such as IUDs can have a high cost even with insurance. If you would like to read more, here is an older article on the topic.
http://www.cnn.com/2011/
However, this policy fails to help those that are uninsured who may need free birth control the most. Some teenagers who are insured may also be reluctant to use their parent’s insurance out of fear that they will find out they are using birth control. This is one of the reasons why I’m excited for our project to map out what low-cost options there are in the South Chicago community for women trying to access birth control.
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