White House drafts rule to roll back 'contraception mandate' for health coverage

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Guardian


Trump administration moves to reverse policy tied to Obamacare that would allow many religious groups to stop providing contraception coverage

Molly Redden
@mtredden
Tuesday 30 May 2017 13.15 EDT


The Trump administration has drafted a federal rule that would allow many religious employers to stop providing contraception coverage in company healthcare plans, the result of a “religious freedom” executive order signed by Donald Trump earlier this month.

The rule, as first reported by the New York Times, would overturn one of the most controversial policies to result from the Affordable Care Act: a mandate for most employers to provide birth control coverage at no additional cost to their workers.

The text of the rule, which is in the “interim final” stage, is not yet publicly available. But it could take effect as soon as the administration chooses to publish the rule in the federal register.=

The so-called contraception mandate, which the Obama administration adopted as part of its enforcement of the healthcare law, was the target of dozens of lawsuits by employers who claimed that it violated their religious beliefs.

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/may/30/trump-contraception-mandate-religious-groups-healthcare

[hibbing]

1. The march of progress continues!

This is like 10 things a day, every day, at least I have been busy at work and can't keep up with all of the god awful policies and regressive things happening every single day. What a horrible human being and a horrible group of individuals that make up that party.



Peace

[George II]

2. "Interim final stage"? Damn, they're good at double speak.

[bucolic_frolic]

3. Making Illegitimate Babies Again

are they messing with our sex lives all over again?

[nycbos]

4. White women voted for Trump.

[trof]

5. VERY confusing sub-headline

Was Obamacare allowing religious exemptions or is it didn't a tRump wants to change that.
It becomes clearer in the story, but this is terrible writing.
Former editor here.

[BumRushDaShow]

6. I may be interpreting this wrong but I thought the Hobby Lobby case

settled that at the SCOTUS level - i.e., these entities were "people" with first amendment rights per the Religious Freedom Restoration Act and could deny contraception -

[*** <...>

The Obama administration had provided exemptions for the law for houses of worship and an accommodation for religious nonprofits (the subject of pending litigation) but not for for-profit corporations.

The Religious Freedom Restoration Act, the law at issue in the case, has never been applied to for-profit entities. The Court had to decide whether corporations even have religious exercise rights – making the beliefs of the employer synonymous with the entire company – and weigh that question against the potential harms to the employees.

<...>

“Although the Court restricted their ruling to ‘closely-held’ companies, this ruling will immediately affect the lives of millions of women across the country. Over 90 percent of America’s businesses are ‘closely-held,’ including such large employers as Koch Industries and Bechtel,” said Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi. “Women should not be forced to jump through extra hoops to secure the fundamental health care they need.”

The White House released a statement in disagreement with the decision, in which they said: “We’ll continue to look for ways to improve America’s health by helping women have more, not less, say over the personal health decisions that affect them and their families.”

http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/hobby-lobby-supreme-court-wins-narrow-ruling#52998 ***]

I.e., the Obama E.O. exemptions were provided for non-profits but not for-profits and the SCOTUS decision basically threw out the for-profit restriction. So to me, it seems the E.O. was already invalidated and there's no need to craft any new E.O. unless they just have lazy-ass staff who didn't look up the SCOTUS decisions.

[Crash2Parties]

7. Abortion is at its lowest rate since legalized b/c the cost is covered.

Republicans hate women. It's just that simple.

[susanna]

8. Truth. There is no other explanation. n/t