Your Turn: Should Health Insurance Cover Birth Control?

WASHINGTON, Updated 5:09 p.m. EDT April 12, 2001 -- Buried in the new federal budget bill is a plan to end mandatory coverage for birth control for federal employees.

NewsChannel5's Kathy Davis reports that federal employees' birth control methods may no longer be covered by insurance.

According to Planned Parenthood, women spend 70 percent more on out-of-pocket health-care expenses than men, mostly due to contraceptives.

"I worked for a doctor, and I didn't have full coverage, and everything I had to buy, I had to buy myself," Robin Klingler said. "Even the gyno, I had to pay for myself."

President Bush has proposed dropping the current requirement that all health insurance for federal employees cover a broad range of birth control. His proposal has angered many lawmakers and women's groups.

"I think the president denying contraception for federal employees is the height of hypocrisy, because it's the various things that would prevent unintended pregnancy, and it could prevent the need for abortion," Scarlett Caminiti of Planned Parenthood said.

Currently, when a federal employee goes to his or her doctor, all five forms of birth control approved by the Food and Drug Administration are covered. Under the new proposal, only one would be covered, and that's where the controversy comes in.

"If they're going to approve only one, that's not giving us much choice," one Clevelander said.

There is support for Bush's new proposal, WEWS reports.

"I don't think it should be an issue for the federal government to take that on," one supporter said.

Should federal employees have all contraceptives covered? It's an issue that's given birth to a new controversy on Capitol Hill, WEWS reports.

There are 1.2 million women who work for the federal government, and Planned Parenthood said that the average American woman spends 30 years of her life on birth control.

Most conservatives believe that if coverage is dropped, it would be a lot of savings on an already inflated budget.

But liberals believe that dropping coverage would be a huge step backwards.