Women's Health

Let me just give you all a little blip about what I think about the Affordable Health Care Act.

I think it's absolutely marvelously FANTASTIC!

It's taken all too long for our country to realize that free preventive care for over 50% of the population that requires more regular visits to a doctor to maintain their health is not only going to help our standard of living overall, but will safe TONS in healthcare expenses because more serious conditions are being prevented.  That's not all though:

"The Affordable Care Act requires new health insurance plans to cover women’s preventive services including well-woman visits, screening for gestational diabetes, breastfeeding support, domestic violence screening, counseling and screening for sexually transmitted infections and access to FDA contraception without charging a co-payment, co-insurance or a deductible."

Not only are they concerned with women's physical health, but their mental health, their financial health, and their family's health.  A healthy mother goes a long way towards keeping up a healthy family, and women as we know are at higher risk more often than men anyway, making it even more important to provide free preventive care.

I can't even list all of the benefits of this act.  Low income women with the most basic insurance will be able to catch breast cancer earlier on, women will be more likely to report incidents of domestic violence if there is no charge for medical help (which will reduce cases of violence, since more perpetrators will be reported on and have their behavior stopped), infant mortality should lower due to women having better access to breastfeeding support and due to their mothers being healthier in mind and body, more unwanted pregnancies will be prevented (saving countless amounts of healthcare costs), the list goes on. 

Though its really no surprise.  When medical professionals are given the opportunity to weigh in on what sorts of care should be free, they are allowed to put their expertise and knowledge to use when it comes to insurance law.  This should be done more often, in other areas of insurance law.  Maybe insurance law to better support children, especially infants (their mortality is much higher in the US than it should be considered the dollars put into healthcare), perhaps targeting the more concerning health concerns of men, such as prostate cancer screenings.  We can no longer afford to cause people to forgo basic preventive care because they cannot afford it and then have to foot the enormous bill later once they have a preventable condition years later.  Maybe if we continue in this vein, we could actually cut the astronomical costs of healthcare and help reduce the deficit.

Anyway, enough praise, here's a link to check it out and sign your affirmation of this act and for things like this to continue.  http://www.barackobama.com/womens-health-signon?source=20110810_FB_BO_ACA  And more general info with more details about what's covered:  http://www.hrsa.gov/womensguidelines/