A bill to amend title 10, United States Code, to ensure that women members of the Armed Forces and their families have access to the contraception they need in order to promote the health and readiness of all members of the Armed Forces, and for other purposes.
Access to Contraception for Women Servicemembers and Dependents Act of 2015
Expands the TRICARE health care program managed by the Department of Defense (DOD) to entitle additional female beneficiaries and dependents to care related to the prevention of pregnancy. (Currently, such care is limited to certain female members of the uniformed service or a reserve component performing active duty or certain servicewomen performing inactive-duty training.) Prohibits cost-sharing from being imposed or collected for such pregnancy prevention care, including for any method of contraception provided through a facility of the uniformed services, the TRICARE retail pharmacy program, or the national mail-order pharmacy program.
Provides for such pregnancy prevention care to include all methods of contraception approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), sterilization procedures, and patient education and counseling.
Directs the DOD Secretary to: (1) ensure that every military treatment facility has a sufficient stock of a broad range of FDA-approved methods of contraception to dispense to any women members of the Armed Forces and female covered beneficiaries who receive care through such facility, (2) disseminate clinical practice guidelines and decision support tools to DOD-employed health care providers, (3) ensure that women members of the Armed Forces have access to comprehensive counseling on contraception during health care visits, and (4) establish uniform curriculum to be used in family planning education programs for all men and women members of the Armed Forces.
Requires questions regarding family planning services and counseling to be incorporated into DOD health surveys.
Requires every military treatment facility, upon request, to provide emergency contraception, or information about FDA-approved methods of emergency contraception, to any woman who: (1) states to personnel that she is a victim of sexual assault or is accompanied by another individual who states that the woman is a victim of sexual assault, or (2) is reasonably believed to be a survivor of sexual assault.
Referred to the Subcommittee on Military Personnel.
Introduced in Senate
Read twice and referred to the Committee on Armed Services.
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