Out today is our latest policy brief, Braidwood Management v Becerra Could Eliminate Three Quarters of the Affordable Care Act’s Preventive Benefits for Women, Infants, and Children, a comprehensive look at the potential implications of this significant case which could radically reduce free preventive care for women, infants, and children.
Braidwood Management v Becerra, now pending before the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, challenges the constitutionality of Section 2713 of the Affordable Care Act, which guarantees nearly all privately insured Americans coverage for comprehensive, lifesaving preventive benefits with no cost-sharing. These comprehensive preventive benefits are a part of all qualified health plans sold in the health insurance Marketplace, as well as health plans insuring people covered through the ACA Medicaid expansion.
Preventive care is at the heart of primary care. Millions of low-income insured patients who receive their care from community health centers and other safety net providers are fully covered for a broad array of preventive care. Losing guaranteed coverage for preventive services without cost-sharing would have a substantial impact on health center financing and on community health center patients.
The literature shows that preventive care vastly improves maternal, infant and family health, and Section 2713 coverage includes dozens of services universally identified by public health experts as essential to promoting healthy maternal and child health outcomes. The benefits are especially important for women and children with low family incomes. While the lack of affordable care is a significant barrier to care and has been shown to reduce the use of essential preventive services, eliminating cost-sharing has been shown to bolster their use.
Maternal and child health stand as one of the most basic measures of overall population health, and in this regard, the ACA has profoundly changed the health care landscape by newly insuring tens of millions of people and broadening the coverage to which they are entitled. Eliminating free preventive coverage secured by Section 2713 would reverse these gains, with serious long-term implications for maternal and child health.
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