Did you know pro-choice advocates in Wyoming recently launched a campaign requiring insurance companies to cover contraception? 

In the fall of 2002, Wyoming NARAL launched the Campaign for Contraceptive Equity to improve insurance coverage for contraception. As Executive Director of Wyoming NARAL Sharon Breitweiser explained, "Contraceptives are part of basic health care for many women, and we want this type of care treated like everything else." Research by Campaign members revealed that most health insurance plans in Wyoming fail to fully cover contraceptives—including the state's Employees' and Officials' Group Insurance Program and Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Wyoming.

As part of this push to improve insurance coverage for contraception, legislators in the Wyoming House of Representatives introduced in January 2003 a contraceptive equity bill that would have required health insurers that cover prescription drugs to also cover FDA-approved contraceptives. Representative Lorna Johnson, a bill sponsor, explained the importance of the legislation by stating, "Women spend 68 percent more for health care than men do. . . . It's a matter of fairness and equality." Although the House Judiciary Committee defeated the bill by a 5 to 4 vote in February 2003, the push for contraceptive equity will continue.

H.B. 227, 57th Leg. (Wyo. 2003); Jessica Lowell, Prescription Parity Bill Dies, Wyo. Trib.-Eagle, Feb. 5, 2003; Press Release, Wyoming NARAL, Legislators File "Contraceptive Equity" Bill (Jan. 27, 2003); Letter from Sharon Breitweiser, Executive Director, Wyoming NARAL, to Editor of Casper Star-Trib. (Nov. 2, 2003).