Fact Sheet: How the AHCA Harms Women’s Health and Reproductive Rights

Right now, thirteen white male Republican senators are working behind closed doors to prepare the Senate’s version of an ACA-repeal bill. If it is anything like the AHCA bill that the House passed on May 4 — and there is every indication that it will be just as bad or worse — it will be devastating to women’s health and reproductive rights.

Trumpcare harms women, plain and simple. It allows states to end required coverage for preventive care, maternity care, and birth control. It prevents women from using tax credits to purchase insurance plans that cover abortion. It denies all Medicaid reimbursement money to Planned Parenthood for the health care services they provide. It opens the door for insurance companies to bring back higher costs for people with pre-existing conditions by allowing states to seek waivers to the current rule restricting price differences based on medical background. And perhaps most cruelly, it slashes the Medicaid budget by $880 billion, ends the expansion of Medicaid (which was the central component of Obamacare that allowed low-income people to get health insurance), and changes the structure of Medicaid funding in ways that encourage states to reduce eligibility and curtail benefits. Since women are the majority of Medicaid beneficiaries, it is women — particularly women of color, women of reproductive age, and older women — who will bear the brunt of this cruelty.

For more on the particular ways the AHCA harms women’s health care and reproductive freedom, read this fact sheet: Trumpcare Makes Us Sick created by GOBK working group WHARR.