The Department of Health and Human Services has issued a final rule that provides exemption from the contraceptive coverage mandate to entities that object to such coverage based on religious beliefs. (Photo: Shutterstock)
The Trump administration has finalized two new rules that allow employers more flexibility in denying birth control coverage for women.
CNN reports that although the Affordable Care Act mandates that health insurance plans cover birth control as a preventive measure, the Department of Health and Human Services has issued a final rule that provides exemption from the contraceptive coverage mandate to entities that object to such coverage based on religious beliefs. The second finalized rule provides exemption to nonprofit organizations and small businesses that may have nonreligious moral convictions to such coverage.
The new rules “could leave millions of women without access to birth control and reverse some of the important public health progress made under the Affordable Care Act in recent years,” Clare Coleman, president and CEO of the National Family Planning & Reproductive Health Association, a national organization that represents publicly funded family planning providers and administrators, said in a statement.
Coleman added, “Family planning has been designated one of top ten public health achievements of the 21st century. It is baffling that the administration would support any policy that could diminish access to this essential preventive care.”
“The religious and moral exemptions provided by these rules also apply to institutions of education, issuers, and individuals. The Departments are not extending the moral exemption to publicly traded businesses, or either exemption to government entities,” HHS said in a news release.
In 2017, HHS officials claimed the rule would not affect “99.9 percent of women” in the U.S., basing that percentage on the many women not in their childbearing years among the 165 million women in America. It claimed that a maximum of 120,000 women would be affected, chiefly workers at the approximately 200 entities that have been involved in 50 or so lawsuits over birth control coverage.
However, policy experts believe that the new rules could lead to “hundreds of employers dropping coverage” and fails to take into account the many women who use birth control pills for such conditions as endometriosis and hormonal imbalances.
“There is no way to know how many women will be affected,” Alina Salganicoff, director of women's health policy at the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonprofit that focuses on health policy research and communications, said in a statement.
Complete your profile to continue reading and get FREE access to BenefitsPRO, part of your ALM digital membership.
Your access to unlimited BenefitsPRO content isn’t changing.
Once you are an ALM digital member, you’ll receive:
- Breaking benefits news and analysis, on-site and via our newsletters and custom alerts
- Educational webcasts, white papers, and ebooks from industry thought leaders
- Critical converage of the property casualty insurance and financial advisory markets on our other ALM sites, PropertyCasualty360 and ThinkAdvisor
Already have an account? Sign In Now
© 2024 ALM Global, LLC, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to [email protected]. For more information visit Asset & Logo Licensing.
Marlene Satter
Marlene Y. Satter has worked in and written about the financial industry for decades.
