A year ago, Republican Cory Gardner created a firestorm in Colorado when he proposed that the pill should be available to women over the counter. Now the controversy has moved to the U.S. Senate and to no one’s surprise it involves Obamacare.
U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet, a Democrat, and U.S. Sen. Cory, Gardner, a Republican, both of Colorado. (AP/Getty Images)
Last month, the Allowing Greater Access to Safe and Effective Contraception Act, which would incentivize manufacturers to make an over-the-counter pill. It also would repeal the Affordable Care Act’s restriction on the use of health, medical and flexible savings accounts to pay for those prescriptions.
Today Democrats blasted the GOP effort . Colorado’s U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet is a co-sponsor. The bill would “build on contraception coverage access in the Affordable Care Act by ensuring that when the FDA approves birth control pills for over the counter use, they will be covered without cost sharing and without the need for a prescription,” according to a news release.
Democratic Sen. Patty Murray said the GOP bill was like offering someone a single shoe: “You really need the pair.”
Said Gardner: “Itap unfortunate they have decided to bring partisanship to an issue that could have brought support on Capitol Hill but we are pleased they are following our lead.”
Will this be available over the counter?
In other words, it’s an issue that has both sides fired up.
Gardner last year successfully ousted Democratic U.S. Sen. Mark Udall. On the campaign trail, Gardner in The Denver Post making the pill available over the counter.
“Since January 2011, an obscure provision of Obamacare has blocked insurers from covering OTC medicine without a prescription. If Democrats are serious about making oral contraception affordable and accessible, we can reverse that technical provision,” Gardner wrote.
He wasn’t the only Republican Senate candidate to push for making the pill available over the counter.
Critics at the time claimed would make birth control more expensive.
After Gardner introduced his bill last month, pundits weighed in on both sides. “Over-the-Counter Birth Control Bill Provokes Irrational Ire on the Left” . “Don’t fall for the GOP’s over-the-counter contraception racket” .
Among those who participated in today’s conference call about Murray’s bill was Cecile Richards, the president of Planned Parenthood Action Fund. She said, in part:
As a result of birth control, women’s lives have changed dramatically in the U.S. Being able to access to birth control and plan our families is a critical factor, and the fact that women are now a majority of college graduates in this country and we have made significant gains in the wage gap, way to go. In any given year, we are half the work force.
Simply put: When we expand access to birth control, we expand women’s economic opportunity.
What’s important, and why we are having this call today, is that access to birth control doesn’t mean much unless it’s affordable access. You can make birth control available over the counter in every pharmacy in America, but if it still costs $600 a year, it will be out of reach for many women.
