Courtesy of NFPRHA

The Senate continued debate on the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (H.R. 3590) today and, in a big victory for reproductive health advocates, voted 61 — 39 to pass the Women’s Health Amendment, offered by Senator Barbara Mikulski (D-MD).

Senator Mikulski’s amendment will guarantee women access to life-saving preventive services and screenings by lowering insurance co-pays and deductibles for such services.  Additionally, the Mikulski amendment could allow for family planning services to be considered preventive services and therefore be exempt from co-pays.  An alternative amendment was proposed by Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) to strip protections from the bill and would allow insurance plans to decide which preventive health care services women receive – this amendment was defeated 41 — 59.

The Senate continued debate with an amendment by Senator John McCain (R-AZ) that would have stripped some of the cuts made to Medicare Advantage and would have sent the entire health care reform bill back to the Senate Finance Committee to be redone.  The amendment failed 42 — 58.  An alternative amendment, offered by Senator Michael Bennet (D-CO) that ensures nothing in the bill will cut guaranteed Medicare benefits for seniors was passed unanimously.

The Senate is likely to debate an amendment to adopt the Stupak abortion ban language as early as this evening.  The amendment will likely come from Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT) and Senator Ben Nelson (D-NE).  The press reported today that Senator Nelson is threatening to filibuster the entire health care reform bill if the Stupak restrictions are not included.

As debate continues over the coming days and weeks, NFPRHA expects this and other attacks on reproductive health provisions.  It is crucial throughout this process to make sure that your Members of Congress hear from you about the importance of ensuring coverage and access to family planning services and not restricting access to reproductive health services, including abortion.

NFPRHA will bring you the latest developments on health care reform in our next email wrap-up tomorrow afternoon.  As always, if you have questions or comments about NFPRHA’s efforts, please contact Robin Summers (rsummers@nfprha.org), Rachel Fey (rfey@nfprha.org), or Jackie Chimelewski (jchimelewski@nfprha.org) at 202-293-3114.