Health Care Reform at Six Months: New Protections in Place for Reproductive Health (For the Record‪)‬

The end of September marked the six-month anniversary of the official enactment, with the president's signature, of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act--better known as health care reform. It also was the effective date for a number of new provisions designed to expand the rights of patients under private health insurance, providing incremental, stop-gap improvements in the interim between the law's passage and the 2014 start date for the legislation's expansive changes to Medicaid and the private insurance market. Several of these provisions should have a substantial impact in the short term on the ability of women and men to meet their reproductive health care needs--although even there, important questions have not been fully answered. Preventive Services