While it's far from clear what the Trump administration and Republicans in Congress will ultimately do with the Affordable Care Act, it is very likely they will do away with at least one of the health law's most controversial provisions.
While the Department of Health and Human Services is not answering questions from media about the future of the contraception mandate, which compels insurers to provide birth control to women customers free of charge, the new leader of the department, Secretary Tom Price, has long been an avowed foe of the policy, as have all members of the Congressional GOP leadership.
In recent months, Speaker Paul Ryan has evaded questions about how the "replacement" of Obamacare will affect the mandate. He has not said whether a new health care policy will include a similar requirement.
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There are two ways the birth control mandate could be scrapped. One way would be to repeal a part of the ACA that requires insurers to cover preventative coverage for free. Another would be for the administration to simply come up with a new definition of preventative services that excludes contraception.
"They could issue new guidance that says plans have more leeway to cover what they need to cover," says Laurie Sobel, associate director for women's health policy at the Kaiser Family Foundation, in an interview with The Hill.
State governments controlled by Democrats have already begun to float proposals designed to ensure that residents will continue to have access to free contraception if the federal mandate goes away.
Four states — California, Illinois, Maryland and Vermont — already have such laws in place. Officials in other states are clamoring to enact their own.
In addition to legislators, Democratic attorneys general are exploring legal action to challenge any new rules that put at risk contraception.
"Women across New York are very concerned that Republican efforts to repeal the ACA will mean the loss of the contraception on which they rely," New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman said in a statement last week. "I won't hesitate to act to protect New Yorkers' rights – including the right to choose, and the right to birth control – no matter what a Trump administration does."
It is a stark reversal from the past eight years, when conservative activists and Republican officials successfully dismantled parts of the contraception mandate through litigation, notably with a Supreme Court decision that recognized the rights of employers to not pay for contraception coverage for employees due to religious objections.
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