CLINICAL PREVENTIVE SERVICES FOR WOMEN:
CLOSING THE GAPS

In a new report, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) has called for birth control to be available without a co-pay for all U.S. health insurance plans.

As the Affordable Care Act (health care reform) starts to take effect, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) asked the independent, non-partisan Institute of Medicine to recommend additional preventive care services that all women should receive at no cost under their insurance plans. These recommendations from the IOM are a critical first step — but their recommendations must now be formally accepted and implemented by HHS and the Obama Administration. If enacted, the Institute of Medicine's recommendations will have an enormous impact on the health and lives of women — particularly young women — across the U.S.

James Wagoner, President of Advocates for Youth, issued this statement in response:

"The recommendations from the Institute of Medicine represent science-based, evidence-based public health policy. We hope the Obama administration will implement these independent, nonpartisan recommendations in full and not allow any of them to be hijacked by politics, ideology, or manufactured controversy. In the past we have seen grandstanding politicians block critical public health progress because the science doesn't fit their own, narrow ideological views. Young people — particularly young women — have too often been the target of this "ideology trumps science" syndrome. We are counting on the administration to make sure it doesn't happen again."

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Advocates for Youth is a national organization that promotes programs and advocates for policies that help young people make informed and responsible decisions about their reproductive and sexual health.