Contraceptive Coverage Expanded: No More ‘Moral’ Exemptions for Employers
Today, the White House issued a proposal that would overturn a Trump-administration rollback of an aspect of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). The rollback had allowed employers with a “religious or moral objection” to opt out of the ACA’s mandate to cover contraception in their insurance plans.
The proposed new rule released today by the Departments of Health and Human Services (HHS), Labor, and Treasury would remove the ability of employers to opt out for “moral” reasons, but it would retain the existing protections on “religious” grounds.
For employees covered by insurers with religious exemptions, the new policy will create an “independent pathway” that permits them to access contraceptives through a third-party provider free of charge.
“We had to really think through how to do this in the right way to satisfy both sides, but we think we found that way,” a senior HHS official told CNN.
Planned Parenthood applauded the announcement. “Employers and universities should not be able to dictate personal health-care decisions and impose their views on their employees or students,” the organization’s chief, Alexis McGill Johnson, told CNN. “The ACA mandates that health insurance plans cover all forms of birth control without out-of-pocket costs. Now, more than ever, we must protect this fundamental freedom.”
In 2018, the Trump administration sought to carve out an exception, based on “sincerely held religious beliefs,” to the ACA’s contraceptive mandate. The move triggered a Pennsylvania district court judge to issue a nationwide injunction in 2019, blocking the implementation of the change. However, in 2020, in Little Sisters of the Poor v. Pennsylvania, the Supreme Court, in a 7–2 ruling, defended the legality of the original Trump policy.
The Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade in June 2022, in its Dobbs ruling, played a role in HHS’s decision to release the new proposal. Guaranteeing access to contraceptions at no cost to the individual “is a national public health imperative,” HHS said in the proposal. And the Dobbs ruling “has placed a heightened importance on access to contraceptive services nationwide.”
“Now more than ever, access to and coverage of birth control is critical as the Biden-Harris Administration works to help ensure women everywhere can get the contraception they need, when they need it, and — thanks to the ACA — with no out-of-pocket cost,” HHS secretary Xavier Becerra said in a statement.
HHS projects that over 100 employers and roughly 125,000 workers will be affected by the new proposal.
