Administration To Scrap ACA Birth Control Mandate
The Trump administration is expected to formally remove a federal health provision, as early as Friday, that requires employers provide coverage for birth control -- making good on the president's campaign promise.
Companies are required under the Affordable Care Act to offer their employees health coverage that covers contraception. Under the new rules, companies and insurers would need only cite a moral or religious objection in order to opt out of the Obama-era federal rule requiring birth control be covered for free for all women.
The mandate raised thorny legal issues when retail chain Hobby Lobby sued in 2013, citing a religious objection to the use of birth control. The Supreme Court sided with the chain's objection, leading former President Barack Obama to draft a compromise rule. That provision said employers aren't required to provide access to birth control, but women who sought contraception couldn't be denied access -- nor would they have to pay for it -- if they dealt directly with their insurance provider, essentially cutting their employer out of the process.
President Donald Trump is now poised to greatly expand the religious exemption loophole, The New York Times reported.
An estimated 55 million women have free access to birth control under the Obama-era rule. Hundreds of thousands could lose that coverage with the change.
Though the move is likely to set off a string of lawsuits almost immediately, the rules need only be filed with the Federal Register in order to take effect. As of Friday morning, none were yet on file.
The Times report, citing a leaked version of the new rules, said the change allows companies and insurers to opt out of the free coverage "based on [their] sincerely held religious beliefs." Another rule permits opting out for "moral convictions."
The potential change would be the Trump administration's latest challenge to the ACA. At the request of the president, Republican lawmakers in Congress have made repeated, but unsuccessful, attempts this year to repeal the landmark healthcare law.
Women's rights groups promised to fight the change.
"Birth control makes it possible to continue education, launch a career, control your reproductive destiny. Everyone should have that right," Planned Parenthood tweeted Friday.
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