How Will the Affordable Care Act Benefit Minnesota Women?

Planned Parenthood Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota (PPMNS) is launching an effort to educate Minnesotans about how the Affordable Care Act will impact their lives. As part of this, today we are releasing a new fact sheet titled: The Affordable Care Act: Improving Women’s Health in Minnesota for Years to Come.

This comes on the heels of new polling data that shows half of Americans don’t know how the Affordable Care Act (ACA) will impact them. Last month, a Kaiser Health poll revealed that many Americans still can’t correctly identify Obamacare’s provisions, and are confused about what actually is and isn’t in the law. Now, Kaiser’s most recent polling finds that 42 percent of Americans aren’t sure about whether Obamacare is law at all. Seven percent of survey respondents believed the Supreme Court overturned it, and 12 percent thought Congress had repealed it.

Those numners are astonishing and it means we have a lot of work to do. The Affordable Care Act is the greatest advancement for women’s health in a generation and we need to make sure every Minnesotan knows how it will benefit them. Under the law, thousands of women in Minnesota will have expanded access to health care services with no out-of-pocket costs.

Our new fact sheet - The Affordable Care Act: Improving Women’s Health in Minnesota for Years to Come - illustrates the key tenants in the ACA that will improve women’s health and lives.

Thanks to the Affordable Care Act:

• 9% of Minnesotans who are uninsured – or nearly 500,000 people – will have access to the health care they need;
• 900,000 Minnesota women will gain access to preventive health services – like prenatal care, breast-feeding support and family planning – without co-pays;
• Insurance companies will no longer be able to discriminate against women;
• Mothers and pregnant women will have improved access to care and families will be protected; and
• Young women will have improved access to health care.

We have a long way to go in making sure that every Minnesotan knows how the ACA will impact their lives. Planned Parenthood's patients in particular stand to greatly benefit from the new law, because many of them will gain insurance coverage. Planned Parenthood has accepted insurance for many years and we will be here to serve newly insured Minnesotans with the expert sexual and reproductive health care our patients have come to expect.