Findings from Pennsylvania State University (Penn State) Has Provided New Data on Managed Care (Contraception Coverage Policy In the United States: History and Current Challenges): Managed Care

2025 JUL 01 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Health Policy and Law Daily -- New research on Managed Care is the subject of a report. According to news reporting originating in Hershey, Pennsylvania, by NewsRx journalists, research stated, “State and federal policies have aimed to expand access to contraception by providing coverage of its costs in both public and private health insurance. Yet barriers to contraception coverage remain and are expected to increase after the 2022 U.S.”

Financial support for this research came from Agency for Healthcare Research & Quality.

The news reporters obtained a quote from the research from Pennsylvania State University (Penn State), “Supreme Court decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. This paper describes the history of these policies and current challenges. We constructed a chronology of federal and state policies providing coverage of the cost of contraception in both public and private health insurance, from establishment of the federal right to contraception through 2024, using published sources and public datasets. We aligned the chronology with the history of the development of contraception technology and practices, as described by historians and social scientists, and with political and legal challenges. Following establishment of a federal right to contraception after nearly a century of restrictions under the 1873 Comstock Act, three waves of contraception coverage policymaking sought to increase access to contraception by making it more affordable to consumers. These waves included options for states to expand coverage for contraception within the Medicaid program; passage of state contraception coverage equity laws to ensure parity for contraceptive coverage in private health plans; and the Affordable Care Act’s national contraceptive coverage requirement and its subsequent modifications, clarifications, and codifications. Post-Dobbs, challenges to contraception coverage include efforts to redefine certain contraceptives as abortifacients and to resurrect some of the restrictions of the Comstock Act. The requirement of no-cost coverage of preventive services is also threatened.”

According to the news reporters, the research concluded: “Contraception coverage policy will be impacted by ongoing challenges to contraception and abortion access, as well as changing contraceptive technology and modes of delivery.”

This research has been peer-reviewed.

For more information on this research see: Contraception Coverage Policy In the United States: History and Current Challenges. Womens Health Issues, 2025;35(3):151-158. Womens Health Issues can be contacted at: Elsevier Science Inc, Ste 800, 230 Park Ave, New York, NY 10169, USA.

Our news correspondents report that additional information may be obtained by contacting Cynthia H. Chuang, Pennsylvania State University (Penn State), College of Medicine, Dept. of Public Health Sciences, Hershey, PA, United States. Additional authors for this research include Carol S. Weisman, Diana Velott, Douglas Leslie, Amy Zheng and Sarah Horvath.

The direct object identifier (DOI) for that additional information is: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.whi.2025.03.002. This DOI is a link to an online electronic document that is either free or for purchase, and can be your direct source for a journal article and its citation.

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