> Published Thursday, July 27, 2000, in the Miami Herald
>
> Health group stops giving free contraceptive drugs
>
> [Beneath this: "Suit challenges refusal to cover contraceptives"]
>
> BY TED LUND
> tlund at herald.com
>
> KEY WEST -- The Rural Health Network of Monroe County, which has been
> providing indigent and
> uninsured patients with free medical services over the past year, will no
> longer provide abortion
> information or birth control pills in the Keys.
>
> The reason: The network has accepted a donation of $50,000 from the
> Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Miami.
>
> The network, a nonprofit organization that receives funding from federal,
> state and private sources,operates the Lifelines Medi-Van service, which
> travels weekly throughout the Keys providing medical care for poor Monroe
> residents.
>
> One of nine such networks in Florida, the group receives a $200,000,
> three-year grant from the federal government, an $88,000 grant from the
> Florida Department of Health and an additional $25,000 from the state and
> University of Miami that allows medical students to work on the van. The
> group also receives individual donations from the community. The church
> donation would account for about 10 percent of the network's annual budget.
>
> Executive Director Mark Szurek said family-planning information and
> contraceptives are usually an important part of the service to the indigent
> and homeless. But he said his group decided to sacrifice those services in
> return for the funding. The agreement is awaiting final approval from the
> Archdiocese. Dr. Richard Turcotte, who disburses donations for Catholic
> Charities, did not return phone calls Wednesday.
>
> The money ``has been a godsend for us,'' Szurek said. ``Basically, what
> we've done is adopt a neutral stance on the issue [of contraception] in
> return for the funding. It is normal for indigent care providers to be
> ready to directly advise patients. With this unique partnership, however,
> Rural Health agrees not to perform services in contradiction to the ethical
> and moral directives of the Archdiocese and the Roman Catholic Church. Our
> policy is that we would not advise or counsel people about birth control or
> related family planning.''
>
> Instead, patients will be given a card featuring contact information for
> multi-denominational counseling and for the Florida and Monroe County
> health departments. The donation came after solicitations by Keith
> Douglass, a Catholic member of the network in Islamorada.
>
> Douglass is active in the network as director of Kidcare, an insurance
> program aimed at children.
>
> The relationship between the church and the network is not inappropriate,
> said women's health-care
> advocate and practicing midwife Gazelle Lange of Key West.
>
> ``I know a lot of people could be upset about this, but they have to
> understand that when you are a
> nonprofit organization, it is very hard just to survive and find funding,''
> Lange said. ``They are trying to do what they can to survive and serve the
> majority of their patients.''
>
> Lange said that any patients who could not get family planning information
> through the Medi-Van service can obtain it through the health department at
> DePoo Hospital in Key West, and through a
> new nonprofit women's health care center expected to open in Key West in
> December.
>
> April Crowley, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Health in
> Tallahassee, said such private,
> conditional donations are allowed under the statutes that created the rural
> health networks in Florida. The Health Care Insurance Reform Act of 1993
> provides for a public/private partnership to deliver medical services to
> outlying rural areas. Crowley added that the Keys group had approval from
> the state Board of Health to enter into the deal with the church, so there
> are no legal questions about the donation.
>
> Szurek said that since the service began in August, the program has given
> birth control pills in fewer than 1 percent of its 6,000 visits.
>
> _________________________________________
>
> Suit challenges refusal to cover contraceptives
>
> The lack of insurance coverage is called discrimination against female
> employees.
>
> =A9New York Times
>
> =A9 St. Petersburg Times, published July 20, 2000
>
> In a case that could have broad impact on contraceptive coverage
> nationwide, Planned Parenthood filed a class-action lawsuit Wednesday
> charging that a company whose health insurance plan covers most
> prescription drugs, but excludes contraceptives, is illegally
> discriminating against its female employees.
>
> "It's sex discrimination when male employees get their basic health care
> needs covered by insurance, but women are forced to pay for their own,"
> said Gloria Feldt, president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of
> America.
>
> The case, brought under Title 7 of the Civil Rights Act, was filed in
> federal court in Seattle on behalf of Jennifer Erickson, a pharmacist at
> the Bartell Drug Co., and all other female employees of the company, which
> operates 45 drugstores in Washington.
>
> Erickson, who is 26, married and spends more than $300 a year out of pocket
> on her own contraception, said she had become increasingly troubled by the
> inequity as she had to tell women who came to the store that their
> insurance would not pay for contraceptive prescriptions.
>
> "Every single day, I'm processing prescriptions and telling women that
> their pills aren't covered," said Erickson, who has worked at the drug
> chain for about 18 months. "Sometimes, they walk away from the counter and
> say they can't afford it. It really makes you sad, and then you realize
> your own company doesn't cover it either."
>
> Last summer, Erickson said, she wrote to the human resources department
> asking that contraceptive coverage be added to the company policy and was
> told that it was not something the company felt it should cover.
>
> Mike McMurray, Bartell's vice president for marketing, said the company had
> worked hard to provide the health benefits its employees consider most
> valuable. "No medical benefits program covers every possible cost," he
> said, adding that Bartell also does not pay for infertility drugs, Viagra
> or cosmetic
> surgery. "We strongly believe our program is a quality program for all of
> our employees. Our program is lawful and non-discriminatory."
>
> The issue of contraceptive coverage has been a rallying point for women's
> rights activists for several years, especially since many employers who do
> not pay for contraception provide coverage for Viagra, which, at nearly $10
> a pill, is used to combat impotence.
>
> While almost all traditional indemnity insurance plans cover some
> prescription drugs, only about half cover any of the five contraceptive
> methods available by prescription -- oral contraceptive pills, the
> intrauterine device, Depo Provera, Norplant and diaphragm -- all of them
> prescribed to women. And only about a third cover the pill, which costs
> about a dollar a day.
>
> A study by the Alan Guttmacher Institute found that women of reproductive
> age typically spend 68 percent more on out-of-pocket health care than men.
>
> In response to requests by Planned Parenthood of Western Washington and
> other women's rights groups, the Microsoft Corp. changed its insurance
> benefits to cover contraceptives, as have Darigold and Swedish Hospital,
> two other local employers.
>
> But so far, the question of gender equity in prescription drug coverage has
> mostly been one for the legislatures. Since April 1998, 13 states have
> passed laws requiring that private insurance plans that pay for
> prescription drugs also include contraceptive coverage: California,
> Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Hawaii, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Nevada, New
> Hampshire, North Carolina, Rhode Island and Vermont. Similar legislation is
> pending in more than a dozen other states.
>
> Meanwhile, the Equity in Prescription Contraceptive Coverage Act has been
> stalled in Congress since 1997.
>
> The idea of taking the matter to court, as a form of sex discrimination
> under Title 7, is not new. Indeed, a New York University law professor,
> Sylvia Law, argued for that strategy in a 1998 article in the Washington
> Law Review.
>
> "It's perfectly clear that Title 7 covers sex discrimination in health
> coverage," Law said this week. "The defendants may say ... they're
> excluding contraception for everyone, and it just happens that the only
> prescription contraceptives available in this country are for women. But
> there's such a disparate impact on women, 100 percent, that I think there's
> a pretty persuasive argument for sex discrimination."
>
> Getting from a strategy to a plaintiff, though, took some doing.
>
> "It turns out that it's hard to find a woman who wants to sue her employer
> over contraceptive coverage, for all the obvious reasons," said Eve
> Gartner, a lawyer for Planned Parenthood. "It's not like suing when you've
> been fired.
>
> "This is still untested water, but it could be an important case," she
> added. "Even though the verdict will only be legally binding on this one
> employer, if we win, it puts everyone who doesn't provide contraceptive
> coverage on notice that their employees could sue."