Commentator Sarah Wildman says the Affordable Care Act finally makes healthcare affordable and accessible for women.

Fact: Before the Affordable Care Act it was perfectly legal to charge women more for health insurance; indeed it was the norm.
Fact: Before ACA, pregnancy was a pre-existing condition. So was a Caesarean Section. Both were legal cause for denying care.
Fact: Before ACA, pre-natal care wasn't normal women's care. Some 87% of insurance plans on the individual market did not offer maternity or labour and delivery as part of their coverage package.

Women have been going into debt, declaring bankruptcy, ruining their lives; all to give birth....

......The Affordable Care Act changes all that. It ends what's called "Gender Rating" - which allowed insurance companies to charge women more for being women.

It mandates maternity coverage. It ensures that pre-existing conditions will not force a woman to go without coverage. It ensures that insurance companies will no longer be allowed to turn down a woman for health coverage because she had a c-section.

The majority of Americans - some 63% - are covered by employer-based health insurance. Another handful qualify for Medicaid. Those of us on the individual market, at any given moment, are only 5-7% of the population.

But that number is misleading. It doesn't show those who are between jobs or starting new projects.......

......When I told my story in 2009 - of being billed $22,000 for the prenatal care and delivery of my child, despite having insurance that covered maternity expenses - I was shocked to discover how many fraudulent plans were out there.

Plans that charged women over $1,000 a month to include maternity care - only to discover that care would be capped at $3,000 or less for an entire pregnancy, and hospital care.

Coverage that insurance companies were well aware did nothing to actually cover the costs incurred. Plans that insisted women pay extra fees for a full year before getting pregnant. Plans that didn't allow women to be pregnant at all.

>>>>>>>> Such Freedom that women have in the land of the free ..... NOT!!