http://khn.org/news/beyond-birth-control-women-could-pay-more-for-insurance-again-under-trumpcare/?utm_campaign=KHN%3A+Daily+Health+Policy+Report&utm_source=hs_email&utm_medium=email&utm_content=38366523&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-_897SZznnGceZv4MmabxjLxrPyW4hbPxfmVCyzeOzoHDwhcLrJcgATPTlOK7a4G_p1jmSl9KDniqJoxePq0lCchIEPkg&_hsmi=38366523

As the prospect began to sink in of losing access to free contraceptives if the health law is repealed or replaced, women have reportedly been racing to get IUDs or stockpile birth control  pills before President Barack Obama leaves office. But birth control is just the tip of the iceberg, advocates say. There are a number of other women’s health benefits that are also at risk.

At or near the top of the list is guaranteed coverage of maternity services on the individual insurance market. Before the health law, it was unusual for plans in the individual market to pay for maternity services. But the Affordable Care Act required that care be included as one of the 10 essential health benefits that all individual plans must cover. In 2009, the year before the health law passed, just 13 percent of individual plans that were available to a 30-year-old woman in all the state capitals offered maternity benefits, according to an analysis by the National Women’s Law Center.

Some plans offered maternity services as an add-on through a special rider that paid a fixed dollar amount, sometimes just a few thousand dollars, the study found. But even with a rider, a woman’s financial exposure could be significant: The average total payment for a vaginal birth was $18,329 in 2010, according to a study by Truven Health Analytics.

Women were also generally charged higher rates for health insurance on the individual market before the law. According to the National Women’s Law Center’s analysis, 60 percent of best-selling individual plans in 2009 charged a 40-year-old non-smoking woman more than a 40-year-old man who smoked, even in plans that didn’t include any type of maternity coverage. That inequity disappeared under the health law, which prohibited insurers from charging women higher rates than men for the same services.

“Our concern is going back to a world where insurance companies are writing their own rules again, and returning women to those bad old days in health care and losing all the progress we’ve made,” said Gretchen Borchelt, vice president for reproductive rights and health at the law center.

Several other women’s preventive health services could be on the line if the health law is repealed or changed. Some may be easier to get rid of than others, say women’s health policy experts.