On Monday, the Supreme Court decided not to rule on a case challenging the Affordable Care Act’s contraceptive mandate, arguing mainly that it was unfair to religious nonprofits who might object to the concept of birth control altogether. Instead, the court decided in a unanimous opinion to send the case, Zubik v.…
A woman in Tarzana, California, is raining very public social media hell upon her insurer, Anthem Blue Cross, after facing a six-month wait for birth control. Rosie Wiklund says the culprit is Anthem’s exceedingly out-of-date directory, adding in a Facebook post, “Riddle me this: why could I buy a gun before the…
Wheaton College in Illinois has announced plans to end health insurance for their students, due to the school’s religious beliefs. The move is a stand against the Affordable Care Act, which requires birth control coverage for all insurance plans. Wheaton, a Christian liberal arts college located 25 miles from Chicago,…
Three federal agencies issued a pointed set of “clarifications” Monday, basically reminding health insurance companies that under the Affordable Care Act, they really do have to cover birth control without a co-pay or deductible. No, seriously. The same goes for “well woman” exams, preventive services for transgender…
One of the provisions of the Affordable Care Act is that birth control methods — be it pill, patch, shot, ring — are supposed to be covered by insurance companies without a co-pay or other charges. But two studies from the National Women’s Law Center have found that many insurance companies are still charging for…
A proposed Republican bill aims to bravely stand up for a woman's right to pay for her own birth control out-of-pocket. Uh, thanks?
Marketers have access to more consumer information than ever (even if some of it's outdated garbage). But advances is analytics are currently creeping toward health care. Are you ready for your insurer to know how many cars you own?
Two parents in Texas have been, for the last three months, forced to watch their 12-year-old daughter suffer from a rare condition that makes her gain massive amounts of weight even as her body thinks it's starving, which would be a horrifying and exasperating thing to witness all its own even without a little extra…
What is it with the wives of politicians making us wish they were running instead of their husbands? Heidi Nelson Cruz, wife of political dingbat Ted Cruz, certainly fits that bill, if a new New York Times profile of her is to be believed. Or does she? [Cue ominous music]
TIME should get it over with and change its name to TROL magazine already, because 1- seriously, that's all they do now, and 2- both TIME and TROL work as knuckle tats, and I think knuckle tat-ability should be considered more frequently in the naming of things.
Recently, Juicy Couture had a problem. Under the terms of the Affordable Care Act, any company with more than 50 employees who work 30+ hours per week has to provide those workers with health insurance that covers basic healthcare. Juicy Couture did not want to do this, because paying for health insurance is really…
The Senate is currently considering a bill that would expand medical coverage for wounded vets to include in vitro fertilization. According to the AP, soldiers with pelvic or spinal cord injuries can have reproductive trouble once they return home and try to start (or augment) a family, and though the Department of…
Commonwealth Fund researchers studied differences in how women in the U.S. deal with health care as opposed to women in 10 other countries that offer universal health insurance coverage and, predictably, found some huge disparities between women with government-funded health care (you know, communists) and women in…
Conservative pundits claim that the Affordable Care Act will deal a blow to freedom, to capitalism, to the economy, and probably to the baby Jesus and kittens, for good measure. But one traditionally conservative institution that's about to take a beating isn't getting much ink: marriage. Any way you slice it, the…
As if being a woman wasn't difficult enough—what with all the not having control over important decisions about our own bodies, making less money than our male colleagues, and, yes, let's play the childbirth card—we are also routinely hit with financial penalties just for having the balls to be born with a vagina.…
Two different contraception coverage plans — one the brainchild of Arizona legislators and the other President Obama's mandate that employees of religious affiliated institutions receive free contraception coverage — moved forward Friday, revealing that the difference between stalwart social conservatives in this…
The Catholic Church responded Friday to the White House's defense of new rules that will force many religious employers to provide contraception to their workers in government-mandated health plans with the grace and dignity you'd expect from an organization that used to sell raffle tickets for Heaven, that is, with…
Today in a L.A. Times op-ed, a woman who was so upset with President Obama for having "let down the struggling middle class" that she switched her registration from Democrat to Independent and altered her Obama bumpers sticker to read "Got Nope" is apologizing to the President. She says that while she was angered by…
According to Republicans, it's of the utmost importance that we challenge any efforts to reform healthcare in America. If you still don't understand why, here's the latest example of how the great, nay, greatest healthcare system in the world functions: Insurance companies are fighting to exclude residential treatment…
All around the country, state lawmakers are trying to force insurers not to cover abortions — not just when it comes to the upcoming state exchanges or for public employees, but even in private insurance plans. The ACLU, which is suing to overturn a Kansas law banning private insurance coverage of abortion, provides …
