HEALTHCARE/OBAMACARE(ACA)/WOMEN: “The Trump administration has drafted a sweeping revision of the Affordable Care Act’s contraception coverage mandate that could deny birth control benefits to hundreds of thousands of women.
The new rule, which could go into effect as soon as it is published in the Federal Register, greatly expands the number of employers and insurers that could qualify for exemptions from the mandate by claiming a moral objection, including for-profit, publicly traded corporations. A 34,000-word explanation of the intended policy change, published by the website Vox, is blunt about its likely impact on women: ‘These interim final rules will result in some enrollees in plans of exempt entities not receiving coverage or payments for contraceptive services.’
The architects of the Affordable Care Act intended to broadly expand access to contraception by making it an essential benefit of health insurance, and the Obama administration’s goal was to guarantee birth control for as many women as possible. More than 55 million women have birth control coverage without out-of-pocket costs, according to a study commissioned by the Obama administration and cited in the draft rule.”
-Robert Pear, “Trump Rule Could Deny Birth Control Coverage to Hundreds of Thousands of Women,” The New York Times online, June 1, 2017