Contraception as Health? The Framing of Issue Categories in Contemporary Policy Making

This study examines the changing classification of contraception vis-à-vis health insurance within legislative, legal, and administrative venues at the state and national levels. It brings together research on categorization and framing in public policy discourse to show (a) how categorization processes shape not only groups of people but also policy issues and (b) how framing can operate not only within issue categories but also to construct issue categories themselves. Through attention to the larger policy-making trajectory and an in-depth state-level case study, the author develops a typology of categorization frames and explores the likely outcomes of categorization in recent health care reform.