Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D.-Ill.), a member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee which has oversight over the Affordable Care Act (AKA “Obamacare”), said Monday that a new Obamacare regulation announced on Friday afternoon that requires all student health insurance plans to offer college women free sterilizations does not mean the government is “promoting sterilization.”
“This isn’t about promoting sterilization,” said Rep. Schakowsky said. “No one–there aren’t college girls lining up to become sterilized because they feel like it.”
Rep. Xavier Becerra (D.-Calif.) said critics of the regulation were making “outlandish statements,” and that the mandate was designed “so a woman can, in consultation with her physician, can make a very serious decision.”
The regulation that the Department of Health and Human Services announced on Friday says that all student health plans offered by colleges in the United States must provide the same cost-free “preventive services” that the administration announced in a final regulation released last month will be required in virtually all other health plans sold in the United States.