Election Day is still a couple weeks away, but the 2020 election is already happening right now. More than 27 million ballots have been cast so far, and in five states the voter turnout is already more than 20 percent of the entire 2016 turnout. But even though Americans are voting at an unprecedented pace, many still feel like their votes don't matter. Honestly, I can sympathize. I’ve covered every element of presidential campaigns in my 15+ years as a political strategist—many of which I discuss on my podcast Your Presidential Playlist—and know how easy it can be to feel discouraged.

But without strong voter turnout, the balance of power in your state could literally be decided by drawing a name out of a hat (looking at you, Virginia). Voters under 30 aren’t requesting or returning ballots as much as other key groups. If you’re feeling drained by 2020 and can’t see how your one vote matters in all this, I’m here to tell you that it does. This election will lead to policies and decisions that affect thousands—if not millions—of people.

Still not convinced? Here are five key issues that are seriously at risk if you don’t vote.

COVID-19 relief could be stalled indefinitely.

We’ve all been personally affected by the coronavirus pandemic, and it’s hard to see an end in sight. President Trump has continually ignored the advice of the nation’s top health experts and even contracted COVID himself after continuing to hit the campaign trail, often without a mask. It is still unsafe for most of the country to re-open, and mistrust around a potential vaccine continues to grow.

Despite the Supreme Court upholding the Affordable Care Act in 2011, the Trump administration continues to try to repeal the law, which would leave millions of Americans without health insurance—in the middle of a pandemic. They have a lawsuit against it working its way through the courts right now, while the Republican party is rushing the confirmation of Supreme Court nominee, Amy Coney Barrett, who would end up ruling on the case.

Joe Biden has a different path forward. Biden plans to build a national contact-tracing force and Pandemic Testing Board to ensure free and reliable testing, coordinate a global approach to develop and distribute a safe vaccine (whereas Trump has said the U.S. won’t join the international effort), and restore the pandemic response team that Trump eliminated in 2018. Biden has also proposed a public option for health insurance, building on the available health care coverage that the Affordable Care Act expanded. Biden will also urge Congress to pass more coronavirus stimulus packages to help those economically impacted by the pandemic. The latest package—which passed in the House of Representatives and was set to provide millions of Americans with additional stimulus checks, new unemployment benefits, and more small-business aid—is now stalled in the Senate.

Working women could lose a generation’s worth of progress.

It’s no secret that women are disproportionately affected by America’s lack of universal parental leave, which—coupled with the difficulty in finding affordable child care—often leads them to drop out of the workforce. COVID-19 has only worsened those inequities. This pandemic-related economic downturn is being called the “She-session,” as women account for 54 percent of overall net job loss since February. And according to LeanIn.Org and McKinsey’s 2020 Women in the Workplace report, one in four women are considering downsizing their careers or leaving the workforce due to the pandemic. That means in a single year, all the gains made in the representation of women in management since the study began could be erased.

Remote schooling and lack of child care have been major influences on women leaving the workforce. And it’s unlikely to get better soon with only 60 percent of child care programs expected to stay open longer than a year without public support. As Representative Katie Porter explained on my podcast, “The reality is no part of our economy is going to be strong and stable if we don’t have adequate child care where kids can be safe.” A Biden administration would enact many aspects of Senator Elizabeth Warren’s child care plan to ease the burden on working mothers: free preschool to all 3- and 4-year-olds, expanding the child tax credit and making it available for all parents, and increasing pay and benefits for child care workers. While Trump had proposed a plan to make child care more affordable, he’s failed to follow through on that promise. Biden’s plan would also champion women’s equality at work by reissuing Executive Order 13583 to promote diversity and inclusion in the federal workforce, something Trump has ignored. Additionally, Biden’s coronavirus recovery plan implements a national standard for school safety guidelines and earmarks emergency funding for public schools.

Reproductive rights could be in serious jeopardy.

In the wake of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death, Trump and the Republican-led Senate are working to confirm Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett before Election Day. Barrett is known for her consertative, anti-choice stance on reproductive rights. She has refused to answer how she would rule in cases on abortion and the Affordable Care Act during her hearings, but did say Roe v. Wade should not be considered a super-precedent. If Barrett’s nomination goes through, the 6-3 conservative to liberal Supreme Court could hear a case on a woman’s right to choose and decide to overturn Roe v. Wade. The Trump administration has also prevented health care providers from telling patients about safe, legal abortion options by implementing a gag rule in 2019 dismantling Title X. This also blocked four million patients from getting affordable birth control, STD testing, cancer screenings, and other care at Planned Parenthood.

Biden has pledged to codify Roe v. Wade into law and nominate judges who would “support the right of privacy, on which the entire notion of a woman's right to choose is based.” He would repeal the Title X gag rule and ensure everyone has access to all health care options. As his runningmate, VP nominee Kamala Harris supports pro-choice plans as well. When running in the presidential primary, she proposed adding a requirement of preclearance for states that have a history of enacting laws that restrict abotion, similar to the way that the Voting Rights Act protects against restrictive voting laws.

The environment could be damaged beyond repair.

Recent news reports and experts say we have only seven years until the climate crisis irreversibly alters the planet. President Trump has not only refused to acknowledge climate scientists, he has removed climate change information from official government websites. He’s also rolled back more than 70 environmental regulations and is repealing at least 20 more. Recently Trump refused to call climate change an “existential threat.”

Eighty scientists have endorsed Biden, whose climate change plan would invest $1.7 trillion to fight climate change, including investment grants in high-risk communities and money for climate research. Biden would recommit to the Paris Agreement, the international climate accord supported by more than 190 countries, which Trump backed out of in 2017. Biden’s plan also promises that the U.S. will achieve a 100-percent clean energy economy and net-zero emissions no later than 2050. But the Biden plan does allow for the continuation of fracking, a controversial practice opposed by some environmental groups because of the risks of contaminating local groundwater and releasing dangerous chemicals, which falls short of the Green New Deal. Trump also supports fracking.

Redistricting could dramatically alter your state’s representation, funding, and policies.

Trump has been taking measures that could lead to huge reductions in the Census population count, dramatically altering the redrawing of political districts for the next 10 years. Deadlines for the 2020 U.S. Census had been extended through the end of October to ensure an accurate population count, but the Trump administration just received Supreme Court support to shut down the census early. Trump is also trying to exclude unauthorized immigrants from completing the census, which could lead to an undercount of the U.S. population. Census numbers determine federal funding for roads and assistance programs, congressional district lines, and numbers of representatives to Congress, so some areas could end up being underfunded and under-represented.

That’s why voting in down-ballot races for state and local positions is extra important this year. State legislatures will draw the new lines for districts using Census information. The make-up of power in your state after this election will have a lasting influence on who is likely to win future elections and which communities will be represented in our government. That impacts the type of legislation that does—or doesn’t—pass, like whether your state permits Covid-related rent freezes or supports adoption and surrogacy rights for LGBTQ families. Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego summed it up well on my podcast: “I hope that as we look at who we elect at the federal level, we also think about people who have faced the challenges our communities face.”

Clearly, a lot is at stake this election. That’s not to say it’s all gloom and doom. As One Arizona’s Executive Director Montserrat Arredondo said during our conversation onYour Presidential Playlist, “Everyone has had something change in their lives. The only thing that hasn’t changed is the voting timeline.” If you’re registered to vote, you still have time to make an impact on all of these issues. If your state allows it, vote early by mail or ballot drop-off to ensure your vote is counted on time. You can also show up at your polling place on November 3 to vote in person. By showing up—not sitting out—we can still make our voices heard and see the progress we want at every level of government.

The Trump administration announced plans to change a mandate in the Affordable Care Act that would make it easier for employers to deny covering birth control by citing religious beliefs, the New York Times reported on Tuesday. The move comes, naturally, a week before the midterm elections and appears to be the latest ploy to appeal to Trump’s base of voters. In short, the rule change would allow companies to deny covering their employees’ birth control via insurance, meaning said employees would have to pay out of pocket for something that, according to the ACA, should be covered.

A previous attempt by the administration last December to expand religious exemptions and deny millions of people access to birth control was struck down by judges. At the time, the Justice Department—the body seeking the rollback of the birth control mandate—issued a statement that disagreed with the ruling and cited “defending the religious liberty of all Americans” as the reason they would continue their attempts. It’s possible that these rules will be blocked as well, which only adds fuel to the theory that this announcement is more political than pragmatic, to be filed alongside Trump’s migrant caravan conspiracy theories and anti-press provocations in the wake of the terrorism threat to CNN.

According to CNN, last year’s proposed (and blocked) rule changes were twofold:

First, entities that have "sincerely held religious beliefs" against providing contraceptives would no longer be required to do so. The second rule would have extended the same provision to organizations and small businesses that had objections "on the basis of moral conviction which is not based in any particular religious belief."

It’s unclear exactly what this latest rule change would look like and when the administration intends to issue them (i.e. whether we’ll get this info before the election next week). But as the New York Times points out, the birth control mandate in the ACA is actually quite popular, so the move may actually backfire on Trump and the GOP.

Still, this latest proposal just further illustrates how Republicans are making anti-woman measures a part of their official party platform. Let's not go back to the Middle Ages.

The midterm election is next Tuesday, November 6. To find your polling place and other pertinent information, go to Vote.org.

yesterday, Congress passed a tax bill less popular than Matt Lauer at a company Christmas party. Just one-third of Americans were in favor of it, and two-thirds believed (rightly so) that it will do more to benefit the wealthy than the middle class, despite promises from politicians to help the latter. So how did it possibly get approved? With a strict party-line vote—only Republicans for, only Democrats against.

Republicans and Democrats couldn’t hate each other more. That’s not hyperbole: According to a Pew Research Center report released in October, the gap between the two parties is wider than ever before. And George Washington, while rolling in his grave, is pausing just to say I told ya so.

In 1796, Washington warned the American people that political parties would become “potent engines by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government.”

Sounds familiar. As America’s first leader accurately prophesied, our two-party system has become one of crazed competition. A system where—as evidenced by this week's brouhaha surrounding the tax vote—political leaders care more about winning (actual subject line of an email I received from the RNC yesterday: "WINNING") than rightfully representing the people who put them there. It’s become a battle for political power, rather than a battle for the good of the people. A battle based solely on relentless pettiness.

Such pettiness was exemplified earlier this year when, in July and again in September, a group of Republican senators wanted so desperately to defeat Obamacare (and with it, the Democrats) that they met behind closed doors to sloppily draft a bill that would leave 23 million Americans without healthcare coverage.

When the bill didn’t pass, President Trump declared his newly devised plan was to “let Obamacare fail.” He made good on his word in October by issuing an executive order cutting off insurance subsidies. Because, again, defeating the Dems (and giving the rich a tax break) is far more important than the wellbeing of Americans.

Through Trump’s numerous scandals in his just ten months in office, Republican lawmakers have stood by the president, likely with their own re-election in mind. After Trump’s controversial firing of FBI director James Comey, Speaker of the House Paul Ryan defended Trump’s decision, stating that Comey had “become an issue himself.” When Trump fired off a wildly unsubstantiated tweet claiming Obama wiretapped him, McConnell refused to even comment. And when Trump retweeted a video edited to depict him hitting Hillary Clinton in the head with a golfball, the lack of reaction and condemnation from Republican lawmakers was inversely proportional the outrage expressed after the Kathy Griffin incident.

But Democrats aren’t innocent when it comes to playing partisan politics. In August, Pelosi bragged that they have “won every fight” against Republicans under Trump. And in May, after Republicans lacked the votes to pass yet another healthcare bill, a group of Dems in the House sang “Na na na na, na na na na, hey hey hey, goodbye,” in stereotypical high-school-basketball-rivalry fashion.

Voters aren’t happy about the side-taking. Frustration with the two-party system has been posited as a cause of the substantial increase in third-party voting in the 2016 election. Both Gary Johnson and Jill Stein tripled the Libertarian and Green Party votes, respectively, from the 2012 election. That surge is thought to have affected the outcomes in swing states. “In Florida, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan, third-party voters had an enormous, Nader-like impact,” said MSNBC’s Steve Benen. Meanwhile, in states including Nevada, Oklahoma, and Ohio, there was an evident increase in protest votes (either writing in a person of your choosing or not voting at all). But our two-party system is so ingrained in America's political machine that protest votes simply swing an election to Democrats or Republicans.

Twenty years ago, there was evident overlap between the ideological politics of Republicans and Democrats in Congress. Today, such overlap no longer exists. And with the disintegration of ideological overlap came an increase in partisan hostility. Since 1994, the proportion of Americans with a “highly negative view” of the opposing party and a belief that the other side’s policies “are so misguided that they threaten the nation’s well-being” has doubled.

Although these figures have increased drastically, the majority of Americans don’t actually express parallel beliefs. Most Americans do not identify as consistently liberal or consistently conservative. And most Americans believe that elected officials need to compromise with their opposing party in order to resolve arguments and pass effective legislation.

It seems as though the expected beliefs of our political parties are more divided than the actual beliefs of our people. According to recent Gallup polls, Americans hold record-high liberal views on moral issues. The majority of Americans—regardless of political affiliation—believe in having access to birth control, support gay marriage, believe the effects of global warming are evident, and more.

This disparity is largely attributed to the fact that moderates are less likely to vote, donate to political campaigns, and contact elected officials, which means the voices of those on the extremes are the ones that get heard.

Political parties no longer serve their original purpose: connecting the American people with a distant government. They have become an intimidating and persuasive presence, coercing unsure voters to back a candidate with which they may not fully agree. They have led us to believe we are far more different in our politics than we truly are. And they have become a divisive force in our country, unremittingly building a wall between the left and the right. We were told this would happen more than 250 years ago. It's high time we listened.

First you need to know why I needed Obamacare to begin with. Back in 2009, I worked as a manager for Starbucks and had great medical benefits. But in a big round of lay-offs, I lost my job. It would've cost $600 a month to continue my coverage through COBRA, and I just couldn't afford that. So I went without insurance instead.

I didn't want to wallow, so I took the layoff as an opportunity to go back to college, and enrolled in a one-year business management program so I could start my own small bookkeeping company. My husband is a small business owner too (he runs a trucking operation), and we love our jobs. But being self-employed means we don't get employer-based health insurance, and buying insurance wasn't an option for me: I have a pre-existing condition. I have asthma. I've had it my entire life.

This one inhaler I need can cost as much as $700 for a single month's supply. That plus my other medication to prevent asthma attacks was just way too expensive when I was uninsured, so I stopped taking them altogether. If I was really sick, my only option was the emergency room.

Then Obamacare came. I live in Kent, Washington, and we have a great state-run exchange here. And because of Medicaid expansion, my family now qualified. We enrolled in 2014—I got a primary care doctor and scheduled a new patient exam immediately and we put together a plan for my asthma care. I was saving so much money, being able to access preventative care instead of just relying on the ER when times got really bad, and my health was so much better.

And then, in August 2016, I felt a lump.

Honestly I wasn't all that worried about it at first—I have naturally lumpy, dense breast tissue and get benign lumps all the time that swell and get painful during my periods. Plus I was in a great place in my life at that time. We had just moved and were really enjoying our new house, business was picking up, and we had some money in savings for the first time ever. But I went ahead and scheduled an appointment with my doctor, just to be safe.

Three days later, on September 9, 2016, the doctor called and said it was breast cancer. Everything changed right then and there.

I was diagnosed with invasive ductal carcinoma. I had a 4-centimeter tumor that was starting to spread to my lymph nodes and my chest. It would have spread into my lungs if we hadn't caught it when we did. And we wouldn't have, if I hadn't had insurance. I wouldn't have had the money or the means. I know a lot of women who do that, too, who say, "Well there's nothing I can do about it," so they just ignore it and hope it goes away.

It's all been a whirlwind for me since then. Tests and biopsies and MRIs and scans and ultrasounds. Everything happened so quickly. I met my surgeon and my medical oncologist and radiologist. During the radiologist's exam, he found a lump in my neck: papillary thyroid cancer. So not only did I have breast cancer, but I had thyroid cancer too. My surgeon, Dr. Heather Wheeler, said she had never had a patient with both at the same time.

In early October, I started chemotherapy. I did six rounds of a very strong chemo regimen every six weeks to try to dissolve the cancer because it was so large. My understanding is that doctors are now trying to avoid chemotherapy because it's so debilitating for the patients, but my doctors wanted to try to treat the cancer before surgery because of its size.

Chemo was the worst. I don't know how people keep their jobs. Let me throw that out there. I'm self-employed so I was able to rearrange things with my clients, but it wasn't easy. I lost a couple. There were always two weeks of not feeling good and then a week that I could tolerate before starting all over again with the next round of chemo. I mostly just worked when I felt good, and dragged myself to do the minimum when I had no other choice. I didn't want to let my clients down that stuck with me during my battle.

I turned 40 in the middle of all that. I was ten days out from my most recent chemo, which is the absolute low point as far as blood cell count and energy, so my husband and I stayed home and cooked dinner. Birthdays—even big ones—are just another thing you miss out on when you're going through this.

I finished chemo in January of this year. Fortunately, I had a very good response. Then I had my thyroid removed in February, and earlier this month I had a left-side mastectomy and a couple of lymph nodes taken out. All the treatment I've received would have cost me about $500,000 if I didn't have coverage.

I'm still in shock that this all happened in the relatively tiny period of time I was covered by Obamacare. I was just so fortunate. The doctors and the insurance company didn't hold back any treatment or say, "She's on Medicaid so don't give her the best drugs." I got the best treatment and the best care. I wish that for everyone in this country: that they can get the treatment they need when they need it.

On March 8, my daughter's 18th birthday, my surgeon called to say I was clear. It looks like the cancer is gone. It was pretty cool to tell my daughter that on her birthday. And now she wants to be an oncologist. That's her new life goal because she's seen firsthand what medicine can do.

But the day before, on March 7, Republicans announced their new plan: the American Health Care Act (AHCA). This Thursday, the House of Representatives will be voting on it.

If they outright repeal the Affordable Care Act without replacing it, which they've discussed as an option, that would be the worst case scenario for me. Medicaid expansion would go away. The mandate to cover pre-existing conditions would go away. It would be devastating.

In the GOP's current proposal, which would replace Obamacare, they are keeping the requirement that would force insurance companies to treat those with preexisting conditions the same as those without. But the bill also phases out Medicaid expansion by 2020, and some even want to move up the end of expansion to 2018. That means I would only have 9 more months of coverage, and that's definitely hard on me. I'm scared.

Being uninsured is not an option for me anymore. My HER2+ cancer subtype has a very high rate of recurrence—only 7 or 8 percent of all HER2+ patients ever experience total remission—so I have to keep my chemo port for another year. I'll still be on targeted chemotherapy through the end of September. I get treatment every three weeks.

If I lose my coverage, I'd have to pay at least $15,000 for each treatment, which is money I don't have.

It's also very important that I get a yearly MRI to try and catch a recurrence early. On top of that, I'll have to have another surgery to remove the chemo port and replace the tissue expander I have currently with the actual breast implant for reconstruction. I'll be on thyroid replacement medication for the rest of my life. I have to see an endocrinologist and have labs done constantly to make sure my levels are good. She will be playing with my medication dosage until we get my levels within a normal range. I hear it's a process. Also, I still need my asthma inhaler, which keeps me breathing.

The money it would take to do all this on my own is impossible. I could pick up a part-time job to try to help cover the premium costs, or give it all up and look for a job with employer-based coverage, but even then I'd just be hoping I don't get sick again so that I can keep my job and my insurance.

I hope I don't have to do that. I love being a business owner. As a bookkeeper, I keep other businesses in business. That makes me proud.

But more than anything, I hope I don't have to feel like my life is in danger because of my country's politics.

My only wish when I was first diagnosed was to make it through this long enough so I could send my daughter off to college. I lost both my parents when I was young—my dad when I was 15 and my mom when I was 24—and I don't want that to be my daughter, without a mom, feeling like she's just floating through life.

I'm not just a number or a figure. I'm a mom. I'm a wife. I coach softball and give swim lessons. I own a business. I pay taxes. I contribute.

Women are so tough. We're all contributing to our society and our churches and our little leagues and being team moms. We're the ones who continue to go out there and do everything we can while we're battling everything else.

There are a lot of me's out there. There are so many people in the world who are just doing their best and trying to be a part of it all. I'm not asking for a hand-out, I just got dealt what I got dealt.

If we all stopped thinking about our own little bubbles and thought about how things affect the greater good, we would realize how important every single person is in this intricate society of ours. I'm one of us. And I hope I stay that way.

Editor's Note: MarieClaire.com contacted Jennifer's representative in the Senate, Washington state Democrat Patty Murray—who is also the ranking member of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee—for comment. Senator Murray told MarieClaire.com the following upon learning about Jennifer and her story:

"Jennifer puts a face on the tens of millions of people who are counting on healthcare coverage through the Affordable Care Act. There's Medicaid for those who need it, and the ability to buy it for others. It's unbelievable to me that Republicans, in a rush to fulfill a campaign promise, are treating Jennifer like she doesn't exist.

Any of us on any day could be Jennifer, going about our day, and then we lose our job, lose our insurance, and get a diagnosis. And this is who ACA repeal really hurts.

When Republicans say that their plan is making it easier for people to buy health care, I hope they look at the details of Jennifer's story. How is she going to buy health care if they throw out her Medicaid? She has no way to move forward.

Women don't just talk about themselves—she's saying, 'This happened to me but I'm fighting to make sure this doesn't happen to anyone else.' Jennifer has the courage to share her story publicly so she can make a difference. An investment in her is an investment in all our futures."

If you want to support Jennifer, tweet at your congressional representative (find him or her here) with a link to this story and the hashtag #ProtectACA.

Republicans in Congress are currently coming up with a plan to repeal Obamacare—but many of their constituents are speaking out to make it clear that they are not doing so with full support.

Republican Rep. Diane Black held a town hall about the Affordable Care Act in Murfreesburo, Tennessee, and several of her constituents gave passionate defenses of the Affordable Care Act and why it's important. CNN reports that one of her constituents, a 35-year-old teacher named Jessi Bohon, was visibly emotional as she gave a powerful defense of why the individual mandate to have health insurance is so important. Here's what she said:

Rep. Black responded to Bohon by saying that the individual mandate still allowed many people to be insured. "About 20 million people did actually come into the program who were uninsured," she said. "You don't want to hurt one group of people to help the another. We can help both groups at the same time."

"How many of those people were in states where they played a political game with people's lives?" Bohon retorted. "I'm going to pass this one," Rep. Black replied.

Bohon told CNN that she voted for Hillary Clinton in the presidential election, and said that growing up in a coal-mining town in Virginia taught her why helping the needy was so important. "Growing up in the community that I grew up, in Appalachia, because we were so poor there that we had to take care of each other," she said.

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If you use birth control, you might have noticed the price tag drop dramatically—even down to zero. And that's thanks to Obamacare, which, agree with it or not, has made it way easier for women across the country to afford contraception.

Obamacare, which is actually called the Affordable Care Act, mandates that private health insurance plans cover contraception. And that has left women with a lot more spending money. A study published in the journal Health Affairs found that American women are spending more than $1.4 billion less on birth control pills alone since the law was passed.

Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania analyzed claims data from a national health insurer to figure out how much women were paying out of pocket before and after the Affordable Care Act was put into place. The patients they tracked were women ages 13-45 from all 50 states and Washington, D.C.

And the results were heartening for anyone on a budget, which is everyone. The average consumer cost for a birth control pack fell from $32.74 in 2012 to $20.37 in 2013, and an IUD dropped dramatically, from $262.38 to $84.30. Overall, IUD users saved $248 and women who took the pill saved $255.

But wait: If insurance has to cover birth control without any copay, why are women spending anything at all? That's because not all brands are required to be covered at no cost to the consumer, and some women are still enrolled in health plans that are either "grandfathered in," or exempt for religious reasons.

Either way, cheaper birth control is likely going to have a huge impact on the state of women in America. Colorado's teen birth rate dropped 40% due to a six-year program that distributed free long-acting contraception like IUDs. And these researchers say that women of all ages will benefit. "In the long term, if we do in fact see an increase in the use of contraceptives, that could potentially lead to a lower overall fertility rate, and potentially increased economic opportunities for women and their families," researcher Daniel Polsky said in a statement.

Thanks to Obamacare, any American woman with health insurance can get generic brand birth control free of charge. But due to a price coding error at pharmacy giant CVS, thousands of women haven't been able to take advantage of this contraceptive 'free-for-all'. After one of Representative Jackie Speier's (D) California [find out how to properly write this] staffers returned from CVS puzzled by the $20 co-pay she was asked to pay, Speier wrote a public letter to CVS's CEO demanding to know why this blunder occurred. As she expected, it wasn't just her staffer who was charged, but nearly 11 thousand other women, too.

The pharmacy giant responded and is currently working to remedy the situation. A CVS spokesperson told The Huffington Post that refund checks are on schedule to be mailed out to affected customers by October 1, 2014.

Serious props to Rep. Speier for the good catch. Who knows how many more women would have to dig into their pockets to be able to get the pregnancy-preventing pills they're legally entitled to.

JENNIFER MOYER, 32, isn't in a rush to start a family with her husband of eight years, so she relies on birth control. Her prescription is supposed to be covered under her employer's health insurance plan—the Affordable Care Act (ACA) covers birth control as preventive care—but her employer, Conestoga Wood Specialties, in Pennsylvania, refuses to abide by the new law on the grounds it violates the owners' Christian faith, leaving Moyer to pay about $360 a year.

On March 25, Conestoga and Hobby Lobby, a crafts chain based in Oklahoma City, will argue before the Supreme Court that the government can't force private companies to cover all methods of birth control. If they win, some of the tens of millions of women who have birth-control coverage—about 47 million total when the ACA is fully implemented—could lose it, depending on what their bosses believe.

"Allowing a woman's boss to call the shots about her access to birth control [takes] us back to a place in history when women had no voice or choice," said Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., in a statement. The owners of Hobby Lobby, which has more than 10,000 full-time female employees, say that while they don't oppose their employees' personal decisions, they don't want to be forced to help pay for certain methods of birth control they find objectionable. Lori Windham, an attorney for Hobby Lobby, says requiring companies to pay huge fines—at least $100 per employee per day—for sticking to their beliefs is "a heavy burden on religious exercise."

But Cecile Richards, president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, says the coverage is "common sense," given a third of women in the U.S. struggle to pay for birth control at some point in their lives. Gretchen Borchelt, senior counsel at the National Women's Law Center, worries that a ruling in Hobby Lobby's favor could be used to justify all manner of discrimination: "A boss could use religion to refuse to provide maternity care, STD testing, vaccinations," she says. According to these advocates, bosses belong at the office, not in their employees' bedrooms.

RULINGS TO WATCH: Keep an eye on these decisions coming from the Supreme Court this spring.

MCCULLEN V. COAKLEY: Outcome will decide whether to maintain the 35-foot buffer zone that separates women who enter abortion clinics from protesters.

SCHUETTE V. COALITION TO DEFEND AFFIRMATIVE ACTION: Challenges whether gender or race can be considered in admission to public colleges.

Some breast cancer prevention drugs will become available to patients for free under the Affordable Care Act, The Huffington Post's Amanda Terkel reported on Thursday.

In new guidance to be set by the Department of Health and Human Services, drugs including tamoxifen and raloxifene will become available without copay. The drugs are the latest in a slew of preventive care medicines and procedures that have become available under President Obama's new health care system.

According to the American Cancer Institute, tamoxifen and raloxifene are known asselective estrogen response modifiers and are useful in reducing the risk of breast cancer due to their ability to act against estrogen in breast tissue. Raloxifene was originally approved by the FDA to prevent and treat osteoporosis in post-menopausal women, as it helps make bones stronger.

In addition to these breast cancer prevention drugs, the Affordable Care Act also fully covers routine anemia screenings for pregnant women, breast cancer genetic test counseling (BRCA) for women with increased risks of breast cancer, one to two mammograms per year for women over 40, contraception, and more. Religious organizations are excluded from the Affordable Care Act's birth control mandate. For a full list of the preventive medicines and procedures offered, visit healthcare.gov.

(h/t The Huffington Post)

Following a temporary injunction issued by Justice Sonia Sotomayor on New Year's Eve, the Obama administration argued on Friday that asking Catholic institutions to sign a form exempting them from the Affordable Care Act's birth control mandate is not a "substantial burden" on religious freedom.

The mandate requires employers to offer plans that provide a range of free preventive-care services, including contraception. The Obama administration created an accommodation for religious organizations that oppose birth control, requiring those employers to fill out an exemption form.

The Little Sisters of the Poor Home for the Aged, an organization of Catholic nuns in Denver, asked the Supreme Court to issue a temporary injunction, which Sotomayor granted hours before the Jan. 1 deadline. The group claimed that the form violated their religious beliefs as signing the document would make them "authorize others" to provide contraception.

The Justice Department argued that wouldn't be the case, due to the accommodation granted to religious non-profit groups. The signing of the form would not result in the distribution of any birth control.

"A signed certification will discharge all employer-applicants' responsibilities under the contraceptive-coverage provision, and their employees will not receive such coverage from the third-party administrator. Given these circumstances, applicants' concern that they are 'authorizing others' to provide coverage lacks any foundation in the facts or the law," Solicitor General Donald Verrilli wrote.

Justice Sotomayor will now have to decide if she wants to rule on the injunction herself or have the entire court hear the case.

This week the Institute of Medicine recommended that prescription birth control be included as a women's preventative health service which would make it covered without co-pays by new insurance plans under the Affordable Care Act. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is now reviewing the report with a ruling expected in August. And that means that now is the time to make our voices heard on the matter.

Of course Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America was one of the first to speak out: "Millions of women, especially young women, struggle every day to afford prescription birth control. [This] recommendation brings us a step closer to ensuring that all newly insured women under the health care reform law will have access to prescription birth control without out-of-pocket expenses. This would be a tremendous stride forward for women's health in this country."

I couldn't agree more. And before you start to think this isn't a big issue you should take note of a 2010 survey by Hart Research that found that over one-third of female voters struggled with the cost of birth control at some point in their lives which led them to be inconsistent with its use. The obvious result here is a whole lot of unplanned pregnancies. And this certainly should not be a partisan issue—it's about the health of all women. In the very same survey, 77% of Catholics and 72% of Republicans surveyed believed that birth control should be covered without out-of-pocket expense. See? We can agree on things from time to time..

What do you think? Vote in our poll below.

Do you think prescription birth control should be fully covered by insurance?