WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. – Almost one million women in Florida will gain access to health insurance as a result of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday. The ACA also broadens their access to birth control and preventive health screenings.

Already, the health care law has enabled more than 45 million women nationwide to get mammograms and Pap tests, and they can now see an OB/GYN without a referral from a physician. At the Florida Association of Planned Parenthood Affiliates, Takeata King Pang says the ruling marks a significant day for Florida women.

"The Affordable Care Act is absolutely groundbreaking for women's health in the provision of preventative health care."

King Pang says more than 90 percent of Planned Parenthood health center services are preventive, including cancer screenings and birth control. Greater access to health care also has economic benefits for Florida women, she adds.

"Because of the Affordable Care Act, women who are currently spending $600 a year out-of-pocket on birth control – this decision means that's going to be fully covered."

The ACA also puts an end to discriminatory insurance industry practices against women, such as higher premiums and denial of coverage for preexisting conditions.



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Minnesota continues to rank highly for quality-of-life indicators, including health, but long-standing disparities persist.

A new round of grants will help community-based social entrepreneurs and nonprofits boost health access for underserved populations. The EmPOWERED to Serve Business Accelerator is led by the American Heart Association and is in its second year of funding Minnesota initiatives.

Kelly Robinson, owner and CEO of Messianic Care in the Twin Cities, took home this summer's top grant prize of $15,000.

With this year's emphasis on helping women, she will use the funding for activities to promote heart health which are more engaging.

"It allows me financially to provide things that I know culturally excites us," Robinson explained. "Who wants to go to the gym and just work out, you know? But for us, I pay for line dancing, I pay for step dancing."

She pointed out efforts like this bring more cardiac awareness to women of color, who are near middle age but lack resources such as insurance. As a community health advocate, Robinson also hopes to use funding to purchase equipment such as blood pressure cuffs.

Among its most concerning data, Minnesota has a high racial disparity in premature death rates, ranking 48th in the nation.

Finalists get a chance to present their ideas at the General Mills headquarters through an event sponsored by Cheerios.

Kerry DeLaney, business unit director for the company, said as they pursue more health equity around the state as a corporation, they need to elevate the people on the ground doing the work.

"Our contribution is to fund them and help accelerate their business ventures," DeLaney noted.

DeLaney, who is also a board member of the American Heart Association-Minnesota, stressed Cheerios does not greatly benefit from the program as a public relations move because it is still largely away from the public's radar.

However, the company said it is committed for the long term and is signed on as a sponsor for next year's grant cycle. DeLaney added he hopes to expand the program's reach across the region.

As states ban abortion with the overturning of Roe v. Wade, women's advocates in New York and beyond are raising awareness of the outsized impact these policies will have on Black women -- and they're outlining a framework for economic and health justice moving forward.

The Congressional Caucus on Black Women and Girls has created a legislative agenda for putting Black women at the center of these policy discussions, to address their long-standing economic barriers.

Azza Altiraifi, senior policy manager for the group Liberation in a Generation, co-chaired the working group that put together the report and said dismantling every structure of oppression is necessary to create collective economic prosperity, and to strengthen democracy.

"It is futile to singularly focus on just closing racial gaps, whether it's wealth or health or housing or education," Altiraifi said, "unless they are also willing to uproot and dismantle the primary causes of those inequities in the first place."

The report relied on the intersectional "Black Women Best" framework coined by Janelle Jones, the first Black woman to serve as chief economist in the Department of Labor. Altiraifi said it builds on a rich history of Black women's feminist scholarship, and includes ties to disability, reproductive and economic justice.

Along with centering Black women, Altiraifi said it's important to follow their leadership on these issues that have affected them disproportionately, adding that in the post-Roe landscape, advocates will be looking to the networks of abortion care that have been built by Black women over time.

"Black women have, in the face of such organized abandonment - both historically and presently - created their own systems, networks of care and community support to meet each other's needs," Altiraifi said, "at a time and in places where the state was failing to do so."

The report pointed to such policies as guaranteed income that have proved to help reduce economic disparities. Members of the congressional caucus, including U.S. Rep. Yvette Clarke, D-N.Y., also have introduced a resolution encouraging their colleagues to follow the blueprint from the Black Women Best report.

Pride Month during June highlights the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer communities, which have long faced discrimination. People in these communities say they continue to face prejudice in Montana, including in finding a place to live.

Pam Bean, executive director of the nonprofit Montana Fair Housing, said LGBTQ people only recently received a major victory in housing at the federal level.

"Given the fact that it's only been a year-and-a-half that under the Fair Housing Act, it's illegal to discriminate against this population based on gender identity and sexual orientation," she said, "there's a lot of education that still needs to take place with housing providers."

A 2020 report from UCLA found LGBTQ people face significant barriers to finding housing. Young adults in this population experience homelessness at a rate more than twice that of the general public. The number is even higher for people younger than 18.

Bean has noticed that people moving from out of state may not understand some of the landlord-tenant laws in Montana or local city ordinances, and this has led to conflict at times. For instance, she spoke to one renter who hung LGBTQ Pride flags outside his residence.

"He and the housing provider ended up with a very adversarial relationship," she said, "because he didn't realize he had to get permission to be hanging things up on the exterior of the unit."

Bean said it's important to understand the laws governing housing. But she also notes that organizations such as hers can provide dispute resolution between landlords and tenants.

"We can share information with both parties and educate them in regards to the issues at hand," she said, "and hopefully reach a resolution where, particularly in this housing market, the household is able to maintain their housing."

Bean said Montana Fair Housing also can help people file administrative complaints with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. However, she noted this isn't a speedy process, typically taking months or years to resolve.