LatinaLista — Healthcare in the United States has, unfortunately, devolved into an economic class privilege — have a moderate to high paying job, you may be lucky enough to have health insurance. Live paycheck to paycheck then health insurance is one of those luxury items that always loses out to putting food on the table or paying the mortgage or rent.
It’s sad that there are some people of privilege who can’t empathize with what it’s like to not have health insurance. Sadly, Latinas have the highest uninsured rate (38 percent) of any racial or ethnic group, and more than 20 percent of Latinas live in poverty.
Due to these circumstances, Latinas who are on birth control, and are between the ages of 18-34, are the most likely of all women to periodically skip taking their prescription birth control because they cannot afford the insurance co-payments.
Anyone who is familiar with taking birth control knows its imperative to stay on track with the pills, otherwise unplanned pregnancies are a real possibility. These are pregnancies to women who can least afford to feed another mouth.
To prevent these women, and others, from having unintended pregnancies, Planned Parenthood has created a new campaign called “Birth Control Matters.”
The intent is to make prescription birth control available without co-pays, enable women to choose the method that works best for them, and reduce unintended pregnancies.
Planned Parenthood is sponsoring an online petition as part of the campaign with the goal of getting one million people to tell legislators “that prescription birth control matters, and should be available to every woman who wants it without co-pays.”
This is one issue of healthcare where access should not be restricted by income, race or gender.
