Earlier this month, President Trump made it easier for employers to drop birth control coverage without copayments from their health insurance plans. The move is likely to make contraception even more expensive, and, in some cases, completely out reach, for women across the country.
If you're pissed about the change, you're not alone. But now, there's a new outlet for your anger. Thanks to a new campaign called Keep Birth Control Copay Free, you can send the billionaire president an invoice for how much you might spend on contraception without the mandate in place.
Here's how it works: The campaign's birth control invoice generator calculates the average annual cost for your birth control. Once tallied, you can fire off the bill directly to President Trump and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The best part? The language used in your invoice, which you can adjust, will be filed to the Federal Register as an official comment opposing the new rules imposed by the Trump administration. (The public comment period ends on December 5.)
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"Women are tired of footing the bill for male politicians' attacks on essential reproductive health care,” Amy Runyon-Harms, the Keep Birth Control Copay Free campaign coordinator, said in a statement to Refinery29. “Together, we are pushing back against President Trump’s dangerous political decision to reduce access to birth control and today we are sending him the bill. Copay-free birth control saves Americans at least $1.4 billion each year. And we figure, with Donald Trump’s frequent proclamations that he’s ‘very rich,’ he shouldn’t have a problem absorbing the cost.”
The campaign, funded by the Women’s Equality Center, also has the support of several reproductive rights organizations, including Planned Parenthood, the Center for American Progress Women’s Program, Generation Progress, the National Partnership for Women and Families, and the National Women’s Law Center.
Thanks to the Affordable Care Act's contraception mandate, an estimated 62.4 million women had access to birth control without out-of-pocket costs. Rolling back the mandate, as Trump did, is putting thousands of women at risk of losing the contraception benefits they're currently receiving at no additional cost. If you believe employers should not interfere with women's reproductive healthcare, and neither should this administration, send the Trump administration your receipts.
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