out-of-pocket costs

Thanks to the Affordable Care Act, American women are saving hundreds of dollars on birth control, according to the first study to document the impact of health reform on prescription contraception spending. To conduct the study, which was published this month in Health Affairs, researchers analyzed claims data from a large national insurer between January 2008 and June 2013, eventually examining data linked to more than 790,800 women. They found that the average out-of-pocket expense decreased for nearly all prescription contraceptive methods on the market. In particular, the average out-of-…