By Rachel Alexander

The Spokesman-Review

In the days following the presidential election, some people celebrated. Others mourned. And a handful called Planned Parenthood, hoping to get long-acting birth control before the new administration takes office.

Planned Parenthood of Greater Washington and North Idaho, which operates a dozen clinics, saw a 76 percent increase in appointments seeking a long-acting reversible contraceptive method in the week following the election. Those methods include four types of intrauterine devices, or IUDs, and a hormonal implant.

It’s not just Washington. Google searches for “IUD” also spiked in the U.S. in the two days following the election, Google Trends shows. Planned Parenthood of Massachusetts saw a 16-fold increase in IUD appointment requests and doctors in other areas have reported similar trends.

Women are concerned about a possible repeal of the Affordable Care Act, which required all health insurance plans to cover birth control without a copay, said Tiffany Harms, Planned Parenthood spokeswoman.

“They’re directly citing that as the reason why they’re calling,” she said.

President-elect Donald Trump has pledged to repeal Obamacare in his first 100 days in office. A Republican alternative health care proposal, posted on Speaker Paul Ryan’s website, does not mention coverage for birth control or mandating insurers to cover any specific forms of healthcare.

Washington law requires health insurance plans to cover contraceptives if they cover other prescription drugs, without waiting periods. Insurers would be able to charge co-payments if the federal law were repealed.

Long-acting birth control methods like IUDs are among the most effective forms of contraception, with effectiveness rates over 99 percent. Because they’re inserted by a doctor and left in place, there’s no room for user error, like forgetting to take a pill or putting a condom on incorrectly.

“We call it get it and forget it,” Harms said.

In spite of their effectiveness, long-acting methods are not widely used in the U.S. A 2015 study in the journal Contraception found just 12 percent of American women used the devices. Among family planning providers, a much larger number — 42 percent — opted for long-acting methods.

Though they can be cheaper than a monthly prescription for a hormonal birth control pill, IUDs are expensive up front, costing between $500 and $1,000 for the device and insertion.

“The first IUD I got, I saved up for it,” said Rachel Todd, the education director at Planned Parenthood.

The high cost of long-acting methods has left some women eager to make sure they won’t be footing the bill if Obamacare goes away.

Though healthcare providers understand concerns over a possible Obamacare repeal, they also said insurance coverage isn’t likely to change immediately.

CHAS can’t subsidize the cost of birth control devices, Johnson said, but they do offer appointments, including for device insertion, on a sliding scale to people without insurance. Planned Parenthood also has a sliding scale for birth control and appointments.

Harms said Planned Parenthood will remain committed to providing birth control access for everyone, regardless of whether insurance coverage changes. The organization’s founders were arrested in the early 1900s for distributing information on contraception in violation of obscenity laws.