Another one bites the dust

[stevenash]

WASHINGTON—The Trump administration said Friday it is rolling back an Affordable Care Act requirement that employer-provided health benefits include contraception at no out-of-pocket cost, a move that will likely spark immediate litigation to preserve the Obama -era mandate.

Federal health officials on Friday formalized a rule that would permit any employer with religious objections to birth control to omit coverage for contraception from their workers’ plans. There also will be a separate opt-out for nonprofit and some for-profit employers who raise moral, rather than religious, objections to the mandate, according to officials at the Health and Human Services Department.

In practical terms, the Trump administration’s decision will allow employers to opt out of offering all or some contraceptive coverage, rather than using a “workaround” designed by the Obama administration in which insurance companies provided contraception directly to female workers if their employers had objected to it. Religiously affiliated employers had considered that move, which the Obama administration pitched as a compromise, to be insufficient, because it still used the insurance plans they sponsored as the vehicle for providing coverage.

Women’s health advocates say the expanded exemption could put coverage of no-cost birth control at risk for hundreds of thousands of women.