Washington, DC--Dian Palmer, Chair, Nurse Alliance of SEIU Healthcare, which represents over 85,000 registered nurses in 21 states, released the following statement today as the provision of the Affordable Care Act which requires all new healthcare plans to cover a variety of preventive healthcare services with no co-pay, including full spectrum of FDA-approved forms of contraception, goes into effect:

This is a great day for women and step forward for women's health. As a nurse for 25 years, I have seen the challenges and health risks of unplanned pregnancies and I see this as a matter of public health, respect for individual conscience, and simple fairness to women and their families. President Obama's healthcare law laid out a vision for a better future for the health of all Americans-- no matter where they work or how much they make. Too often, working class women were unable to afford the family planning help they need, but as of today women will have access to affordable birth control.

"Opponents in Congress and in statehouses across the country are trying to roll back this basic, preventive healthcare for women, are mischaracterizing how birth control works and attempting to drastically expand the religious employer exemption to the contraceptive coverage requirement to deny millions of women access to contraception. However, most Americans understand that this is a matter of basic healthcare and fairness.

"The fact is birth control is a monthly expense that is significant for a working family, and it is among the most common medications taken by women of childbearing age. Contraceptive use is the rule, not the exception among women who can afford it--99 percent of women overall and 98 percent of Catholic women use birth control as some point in their lives. Since birth control use is nearly universal among women of child-bearing age, including Catholic women, it makes no sense to continue to exempt birth control from insurance coverage. This policy does not have any religious underpinning; it is simply sound health policy.

"The expansion of this preventive coverage with no cost-sharing or deductibles will improve the lives and health of women across America and bring real economic and emotional relief to the millions of women who prior to the law, had nowhere to turn."

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