As many as 47 million American women will become eligible to get cost-free preventive health care services under provisions of Obamacare that took effect on Wednesday.

The provisions of the Affordable Care Act provide for such co-pay free service as well woman visits, which include an annual checkup to get illness prevention care plus additional visits to a physician if deemed necessary.

Murray

The additional womens health services were applauded in a Senate floor speech by Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., whose first major Senate speech in 1993 dealt with a friends death from ovarian cancer and lack of attention to womens health.

Women, for the first time today, have the safety and security of knowing their health coverage cannot be taken away . . . It is a huge step forward for womens health, Murray told SeattlePI.com

But a dozen House Republicans used the services taking effect to denounce the Affordable Care Act. Its requirement that health insurance plans offer contraception services is being challenged by Catholic dioceses and colleges who have filled numerous lawsuits.

Rep. Mike Kelly, R-Penn., declared: I know in your mind, you can think of the times America was attacked. One is December 7, thats Pearl Harbor Day. The other is September 11, and thats the day the terrorists attacked. I want you to remember August 1, 2012, the attack on our religious freedom.

That is a day that will live in infamy, along with those other days.

U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, a Catholic, tweeted about the basics of what the health care reform law requires. Women deserve to have control over their health care, she said. Too often they have gone without preventive services, worrying about what even a $20 insurance co-pay would mean to their families budgets . . .

The Affordable Care Act provides for a variety of services designed to prevent unwanted pregnancies and diseases that strike women. These include:

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Preventive health care — a new Pearl Harbor?