If birth control coverage ends, what's next?
Engler's experience highlights how a labyrinthine patchwork of insurance coverage rules on reproductive health care creates confusion for patients.
An ongoing federal lawsuit aims to strike down the ACA's preventive care coverage requirements for private insurers. If the case knocks out the mandates, state-level laws - which vary widely across the country - would carry more weight, a change that would resume the "wild West" dynamic from be- fore Obamacare, said
It would create an environment "in which insurers and employers pick and choose which services they want to cover or which services they want to charge for," Baron said. "It would certainly threaten access to care for millions of Americans."
Studies have shown the requirements to cover preventive care have reduced consumers' out-of-pocket costs and increased their use of short-and long-term birth control methods.
The job of defining which contraceptive services should be covered falls to the
The plaintiffs in the lawsuit, a group of individuals and Christian-owned businesses, argue the members of these three panels haven't been properly appointed by
On
The court then sent the plaintiffs' challenges to the recommendations made by HRSA and ACIP - including those on contraception - back to a lower court to consider.
The case is likely headed to
"O'Connor is a judge notoriously hostile to the Affordable Care Act," said
A win for the plaintiffs, she worried, could create confusion about what kind of contraception is covered and how much it costs, which would ultimately lead to more unintended pregnancies - all at a time when women have less access to abortions. Nearly two dozen organizations - including the
What power agencies do have is likely to be curtailed in the wake of a
"Courts are going to be more able to scrutinize experts," said
Eliminating federal coverage requirements for contraception would leave it up to states to determine what services health insurance plans would be required to provide.
Fourteen states and
"Although we administered the benefit correctly, an employee who spoke with
Engler said he's happy with the outcome, though he's still unsure how
He worries that others don't have the means he had to advocate for himself.
"It's scary," he said. "So many people are limited in their resources or their understanding of how to fight - or even who to fight."
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