Trump administration ending mandate to cover birth control
The Department of Health and Human Services released two new rules today that would allow employers to make exemptions to covering contraception under the Affordable Care Act. The rules go into effect today.
The first new rule, allowing religious objections, allows any employer to opt against providing birth control coverage. The second rule provides an exemption for organizations and small businesses that object on the basis of moral conviction rather than religious belief.
The Health and Human Services Department says the new rules will affect only a small fraction of women. The changes "will not affect over 99.9 percent of the 165 million women in the United States," the department said. It added that the exemptions to covering birth control will likely only have an impact for the roughly 200 employers that have filed lawsuits based on religious or moral objections.
“No American should be forced to violate his or her own conscience in order to abide by the laws and regulations governing our health care system," Caitlin Oakley, Health and Human Services press secretary, said in a statement. "Today’s actions affirm the Trump administration’s commitment to upholding the freedoms afforded all Americans under our Constitution," the statement said.
The department's new rules cite the Supreme Court's Hobby Lobby ruling as legal grounds.
Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards slammed the decision.
"The Trump administration just took direct aim at birth control coverage for 62 million women. This is an unacceptable attack on basic health care that the vast majority of women rely on," Richards said in a statement.
"With this rule in place, any employer could decide that their employees no longer have health insurance coverage for birth control," she said in the statement. The Trump administration is rolling back Obama-era mandate that allowed universal access to birth control.
