Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA), commonly shortened to Planned Parenthood, is the U.S. affiliate of the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) and one of its larger members. PPFA is a non-profit organization providing reproductive health and maternal and child health services.

Susan G. Komen for the Cure, formerly known as The Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation, often referred to as simply Komen, is the most widely known, largest and best-funded breast cancer organization in the United States. She has contributed much in the battle against breast and cervical cancer, but the company's recent conclusion to pull its financing of Planned Parenthood has drawn critical fire. Susan G. Komen CEO Nancy Brinker insists that the media's depiction of events has been “a gross mischaracterization.” Susan Komen attempts to deflect heat from Planned Parenthood decision. In the face of intensely angry public response, particularly from groups that support women’s health and reproductive rights, yet it did not characterize exactly where the large influx of money was coming from.

Well yes and no. For those 26 and under they can be covered on their parents insurance without being a full time student, so they could be a financial contributor to being covered on the policy of their parents if their employment doesn't offer insurance or it is very expensive. My employer made an unpopular move two or so years ago that requires all benefit eligible employees to either buy the employee plan or prove they have insurance elsewhere.There is some high deductible plan with an HSA, but that is pretty worthless for single people. I know some employees who are young, single, and healthy got an individual high deductible plan through Blue Cross since it was less than paying into the company plan.

As far as your concern/comment about your parents getting the EOB a lot of that has changed with privacy and confidentiality laws, including how an EOB is received. My employer uses Blue Cross and EOBs are almost always electronic, and for those over 18 they can be sent to the address of that covered individual or received online with an online log in not linked to their parents. Same situation for my doctor, which is the biggest practice in town and also is contracted for Student Health. People get their own log in for the practice and can get notices of test results and make appointments through the system privately.

Students are all required to have insurance by the University, and if they don't prove they have it it automatically goes on their account as a semester fee. If students utilize the Student Health Center they can easily keep things from their parents and can use the pharmacy, and it goes on their student account. Fortunately there are often samples at Student Health that come through there and the practice that manages it, so birth control isn't always a financial issue.

That "fact" was debunked back in '08 after it was brought up during the election season. IIRC the major insurance companies (BCBS, Aetna) have never covered Viagra or ED medications and the ones that did cover it when it was originally introduced ended up dropping it because it ended up being too expensive*. That being said, it's my understanding that birth control is pretty much covered by all insurance companies these days.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mobile..._n_914818.html
*Side note- I'm sure there are some fat cats who had their Viagara covered by their awesome insurance but generally speaking the 99 percenters insurance never covered it.

Whether birth control is included depends on the rider your employer purchases. Ditto for Viagra and every other drug. The insurance companies have different formularies that your employer can choose from (along with different co-pay levels). All part of my beef at being at the mercy of your employer when it comes to your benefits. If employers gave us vouchers and we could shop for our own insurance, we could tailor our riders to meet our needs and select the plan that balances our needs with our budget. We could also choose to purchase it from a different company.

As for EOBs.. Vandal Squirrel, BCBS of Michigan still does them by mail. This varies greatly by plan and having electronic EOBs is not a requirement by the BCBS Association. I would imagine that the elderly, who are not comfortable with electronic methods, would not be happy with electronic EOBs.

"Coverage" for birth control varies considerably depending on the type of pill you are on. One insurance company I had in recent years paid $3 toward my $50 pill pack. That's not coverage. Anyway, for most programs all drugs are on a schedule so you get a variable co-pay depending on the expense of a drug (which usually depends on whether or not it is generic.)

Trust me. You do NOT want a voucher system. As much as you think it would be better not to have to be at the mercy of your employer, in our system, the only thing that protects you from being dropped from your policy when you have a claim is the fact that you are in a group policy through your employer. That's why the voucher system for Medicare is dumb (as well as for the fact that insurance companies won't take high risk individuals with multiple medical problems. What do you think you'll get with the elderly population?)

This is also an unfortunate side-effect of insurance regulation at the state level - the inability to sell across state lines, along with state DOIs effectively dictating certain terms of coverage, means that the voucher would be markedly less useful and flexible than most people think (there's very little wiggle room in the effective market). Certainly not flexible enough to offset the danger of being dropped that you note.

Karen Handel resigned from SGK.

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories...MPLATE=DEFAULT

Good, but she's just a symptom of the SGK disease. They looked for someone to handle (pun not intended) their PP problem. That's why they hired Karen Handel in the first place. Handel just couldn't handle it! (pun intended that time.)

But maybe it was a wake up call to them to head back to their original mission. It really is a very moving story (NOBODY sees the video without getting verklempt) that I think got to be more about money/power/prestige than about being a leader in helping women.

The fact is there IS a cure for breast cancer. The trick is to help women to be able to use that knowledge while they can still benefit from it (education, prevention, mammograms, treatment and the mountain of cash required to get through it once diagnosed). And politics over that mission is what bit them in the ass. If they can get back to empowering women in a myriad of ways, from finding a way to get people to donate the money to training to walk 60 miles (I can tell you first hand, that is an ACCOMPLISHMENT) to handling your health proactively, they can repair their damaged reputation.

I really think they changed the way people think about women's health. I hope they can get back to that and ease up on the buy everything pink you can find path they've been on.

Under my system, they wouldn't be able to do that :) BCBS of Michigan is the only insurer of last resort in Michigan currently but under the new health care reform, all of them will have to take people regardless of pre-existing conditions, claims history, etc. BCBSM is very happy about that because they take the whole burden now.

That is if the affordable care act is upheld. The other problem is that despite the requirement that they not discriminate against people for pre-existing conditions, it doesn't mean they can jack your costs up significantly. They can't do that with a group policy.