Oh, the Hypocrisy! Health Chief Slated to Laud Importance of Primary Care After His Agency Rolls Back Insurance Coverage for Birth Control
11.08.18 – Less than 24 hours after issuing rules that would further empower employers to discriminate against their female employees by denying insurance coverage for birth control, HHS Secretary Alex Azar is slated to deliver a keynote address on primary care at the Patient-Centered Primary Care Collaborative Conference. Today’s keynote also follows the release of a proposed rule late yesterday that would further drive insurance coverage for abortion out of reach by forcing insurers who cover the procedure to charge women in a separate monthly bill.
Said Mary Alice Carter, Executive Director of Equity Forward:
“Birth control is basic health care. It’s used by over 99% of sexually active women at some point in their lifetimes and is the very definition of primary care.
“It’s absurd that Secretary Azar has the nerve to laud the importance of primary care less than a day after rolling back women’s access to basic health care services. Azar’s message is clear: women are not part of the equation when it comes to his ideas about health care delivery. That’s unacceptable and Equity Forward — along with the millions of women who use birth control in this country — will simply not stand for it.”
Equity Forward has long been sounding the alarm on the ideological takeover at HHS, primarily via its HHS Watch campaign. Across the department, the Trump administration has appointed a group of unqualified and politically motivated ideologues who are unfit to run the programs they are tasked with overseeing, thereby endangering the millions of women, men, and families who rely on the department’s programs.
###