Skip to content

Republish This Story

* Please read before republishing *

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free under an Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives Creative Commons license as long as you follow our republishing guidelines, which require that you credit The 19th and retain our pixel. See our full guidelines for more information.

To republish, simply copy the HTML at right, which includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to The 19th. Have questions? Please email [email protected].

— The Editors

Loading...

Modal Gallery

/

Menu

  • Our Mission
  • Our Team
  • Latest Stories
  • Upcoming Events
  • Contact Us
  • Newsletter
  • Donate
  • Work With Us
  • Fellowships
    • From the Collection

      Changing Child Care

      Illustration of a woman feeding a baby a bottle
      • As climate change worsens hurricane season in Louisiana, doulas are ensuring parents can safely feed their babies

        Jessica Kutz · May 5
      • Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito argued abortion isn’t an economic issue. But is that true?

        Chabeli Carrazana · May 4
      • Pregnant people are at 'greater risk' in states hit hard by wildfire smoke, air pollution, new report shows

        Jessica Kutz · April 20
    • From the Collection

      Next-Gen GOP

      Illustration of a woman riding an elephant
      • A banner year for Republican women

        Amanda Becker · November 11
      • Republican women could double representation in the U.S. House

        Amanda Becker · November 4
      • U.S. Rep. Elise Stefanik wants to elect more Republican women into office

        Barbara Rodriguez · August 13
    • From the Collection

      On The Rise

      Illustration of three women marching
      • Jessica Cisneros takes on the last anti-abortion U.S. House Democrat

        Amanda Becker · February 25
      • Meet J. Michelle Childs, South Carolina judge and possible Supreme Court contender

        Candice Norwood · February 18
      • ‘The bench is loaded’: A record number of Latinas are running for governor

        Barbara Rodriguez · February 11
    • From the Collection

      Pandemic Within a Pandemic

      Illustration of four people marching for Black Lives Matter with coronavirus as the backdrop
      • Some LGBTQ+ people worry that the COVID-19 vaccine will affect HIV medication. It won’t.

        Orion Rummler · November 23
      • Why are more men dying from COVID? It’s a complicated story of nature vs. nurture, researchers say

        Mariel Padilla · September 22
      • Few incarcerated women were released during COVID. The ones who remain have struggled.

        Candice Norwood · August 17
    • From the Collection

      Portraits of a Pandemic

      Illustration of a woman wearing a mask and holding up the coronavirus
      • For family caregivers, COVID is a mental health crisis in the making

        Shefali Luthra · October 8
      • A new database tracks COVID-19’s effects on sex and gender

        Shefali Luthra · September 15
      • Pregnant in a pandemic: The 'perfect storm for a crisis'

        Shefali Luthra · August 25
    • From the Collection

      The 19th Explains

      People walking from many articles to one article where they can get the context they need on an issue.
      • The 19th Explains: The governor’s races we’re watching in 2022

        Barbara Rodriguez · May 3
      • The 19th Explains: What to know about Ketanji Brown Jackson’s Supreme Court confirmation hearing

        Candice Norwood, Terri Rupar · March 21
      • The 19th Explains: Colleges are dropping the SAT in admissions. That’s a good thing for most girls.

        Nadra Nittle · March 3
    • From the Collection

      The Electability Myth

      Illustration of three women speaking at podiums
      • Do term limits help women candidates? New York could be a new testing ground

        Barbara Rodriguez · January 11
      • Girls are being socialized to lose political ambition — and it starts younger than we realized

        Barbara Rodriguez · September 23
      • Kathy Hochul’s rise in New York spotlights the barriers to women becoming governors

        Barbara Rodriguez · August 23
    • From the Collection

      The Impact of Aging

      A number of older people walking down a path of information.
      • Woman alleges that an assisted living facility denied her admission because she is transgender

        Sara Luterman · November 8
      • LGBTQ+ seniors fear having to go back in closet for the care they need

        Sara Luterman · October 12
      • The pandemic continues to strain nursing homes. What happens if a lot of them close?

        Mariel Padilla · September 9
    • From the Collection

      Voting Rights

      A series of hands reaching for ballots.
      • Florida’s redistricting fight continues. The head of the state League of Women Voters talks about what’s at stake.

        Barbara Rodriguez · April 19
      • Women have been sounding the alarm ahead of Texas’ first-in-the-nation primary

        Barbara Rodriguez · February 28
      • LGBTQ+ people of color are at risk from rising voter restrictions as federal protections falter in the Senate, advocates say

        Orion Rummler · January 19

    View all collections

  • Explore by Topic

    • Abortion
    • Business & Economy
    • Caregiving
    • Coronavirus
    • Education
    • Election 2020
    • Elections 2022
    • Environment & Climate
    • Health
    • Immigration
    • Inside The 19th
    • Justice
    • LGBTQ+
    • Politics
    • Race
    • Sports
    • Technology

    View All Topics

Home
  • Our Mission
  • Our Team
  • Latest Stories
  • Upcoming Events
  • Contact Us
  • Newsletter
  • Donate
  • Work With Us
  • Fellowships

We’re an independent, nonprofit newsroom reporting on gender, politics and policy. Read our story.

The 19th News(letter)

News that represents you, in your inbox every weekday.

You have been subscribed!

Submitting...

Uh-oh! Something went wrong. Please try again later.

Donate to get our member newsletter

The 19th thanks our sponsors. Become one.

reminder and expiration card for an Implanon contraceptive implant
The Affordable Care Act (ACA) guarantees all FDA-approved contraceptive methods, counseling and related services — but these protections do not apply to TRICARE, the military's insurance provider. (Josh Lawton/Digital First Media/Boulder Daily Camera via Getty Images)

Health

Democrats ask Pentagon to end birth control costs for military families

While active service members receive full contraceptive coverage, more than 700,000 military spouses and dependents of reproductive age still have copays for pills, implants, IUDs and other preventive measures.

Mariel Padilla

General Assignment Reporter

Mariel Padilla portrait

Published

2022-01-24 10:51
10:51
January 24, 2022
am

Share

  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Email

Inactive service members, veterans, military spouses and dependents are subject to copays for contraceptive care — care that is fully covered under many employer-sponsored and marketplace health plans outside of the military. Democrats in Congress want to change that. 

More than 140 Democrats in Congress signed a letter Thursday urging the secretary of defense to eliminate additional costs for military families who currently have “fewer rights than those they serve to protect.” 

Rep. Jackie Speier of California, who for years has been working to end cost barriers to contraceptive care, said this is a “simple issue of fairness.”

The 19th thanks our sponsors. Become one.

“Military families that are often living on tight budgets shouldn’t have to use their hard-earned money for contraceptive copays when civilians don’t have to carry that financial burden,” said Speier, co-chair of the Democratic Women’s Caucus and chair of the House Armed Services Military Personnel Subcommittee.

Full coverage, without copays, remains in place for active service members.

The Department of Defense did not respond to a request for comment.

A newsletter you can relate to

Storytelling that represents you, delivered to your inbox.

You have been subscribed!

Submitting…

Uh-oh! Something went wrong. Please try again later.

The TRICARE program, which provides health benefits to U.S. troops, retirees and their families around the world, covered nearly 1.6 million women of reproductive age in 2019 — including more than 700,000 military spouses and dependents of reproductive age. Additionally, thousands of transgender dependents of service members are covered by TRICARE. The legislative text notes that contraception is critical to “all individuals with the capacity for pregnancy, including cisgender women, transgender men, non-binary individuals, those who identify with a different gender and others.” 

The Affordable Care Act (ACA) guarantees all FDA-approved contraceptive methods, counseling and related services — but these protections do not apply to TRICARE. A spokesperson for TRICARE had not issued a response by publication time.

Rep. Lois Frankel, a Florida Democrat who also signed the letter, said in a statement that current insurance law created a disparity that was unfair to military dependents. 

“The Affordable Care Act eliminated co-pays for contraceptive care for individuals with employer-sponsored and marketplace plans, allowing access to birth control to become more affordable and accessible,” Frankel said. “Our men and women in uniform—and their families—sacrifice so much for our country, ensuring they have access to quality health care, including the birth control they need, should not be debatable!”

Lawmakers have repeatedly tried to ensure that these service members and their families are not subject to copays for contraception. Most recently, early versions of the 2022 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) included a contraceptive access provision, which was later removed following Republican pushback. 

  • More from The 19th
    graduating cadets march to their graduation.
  • Congress votes to eliminate ‘pink tax’ on military uniforms
  • Congress had the votes to overhaul how the military handles serious crimes. Why didn’t it?
  • The 19th Explains: Could women qualify for the draft someday? Here’s what you need to know.

Speier, who said through a spokesperson that she has tried to include this provision in the NDAA for several years only to have it removed in last-minute conferences, criticized the opponents’ “Stone-Age mentality” and emphasized that “birth control is health care and access to it is every person’s right.” 

The provision, however, still has bipartisan support in both the House and Senate, and the Department of Defense has also voiced support for “this legislative relief,” according to Thursday’s letter. So with the window closed this year for inclusion in the NDAA, legislators are taking a different approach: urging the Department of Defense to declare contraceptive services as “preventative medical care,” which would allow Secretary Lloyd Austin to waive all copays. 

The letter cited defense officials as saying that  “removing these financial barriers to contraception may mean more freedom of choice with respect to family planning for our beneficiaries,” according to the letter. The Defense Department already supports, through regulations, providing victims of sexual assault in the military with emergency contraception upon request. 

“Access to contraception and the ability to determine if and when to have children are inextricably tied to one’s health and wellbeing, equality, financial security, and control over one’s life,” the legislators wrote. “Studies have shown that the costs related to contraception, even when small, lead some women to forgo it completely, to choose less effective methods, or to use it inconsistently.” 

The NDAA, an annual bill that provides guidance on how military funding should be spent, was passed in December with a 89-10 vote in the Senate. Though the contraceptive care provision for military retirees and dependents was stripped from the final $770 billion legislation, women in active duty gained other protections. 

Uniformed service members received a 2.7 percent increase in pay, and the “pink tax” on military uniforms was eliminated. Women in the military also saw an expansion to child care access and changes to the military justice system. Now, an independent special prosecutor will handle specific crimes such as rape, sexual assault, murder and domestic violence — though some legislators argue that more needs to be done to destigmatize victims and create a truly independent process. 

The Military Moms Matter Act, championed by Rep. Chrissy Houlahan of Pennsylvania, was incorporated into the annual defense bill. Members of the military who have given birth now have more time to complete their physical fitness test postpartum. They are also guaranteed postpartum care, including mental health assessments, pelvic health treatment and other considerations for physical therapy. The provision also extends parental leave to 12 weeks for both primary and secondary caregivers. 

The provision was a direct result of talking to service members, Houlahan said. 

“I vividly remember sitting with Pennsylvania National Guard members of the 28th Infantry Division last spring, asking what could be done to help them balance the demands of serving their country and their civilian lives and careers,” Houlahan, a former Captain in the Air Force, said in a statement. 

Share

  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Email

Building stronger together.

A new model for nonprofit journalism: For our readers. For our team. For our community.

Become a member

Sign up for our newsletter

Up Next

LGBTQ+

As hospitals face blood shortage, senators seek new donor rules for gay and bisexual men

Nearly two dozen lawmakers urged the FDA to update “its discriminatory blood donor deferral policies for men who have sex with men.”

Read the Story

The 19th
The 19th is a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization. Our stories are free to republish in accordance with these guidelines.

  • Donate
  • Subscribe to the Newsletter
  • Attend an Event
  • Jobs
  • Fellowships
  • Contact Us
  • About Us
  • Community Guidelines
  • Membership
  • Membership FAQ
  • Major Gifts
  • Sponsorship
  • Privacy
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Instagram