When the Affordable Care Act was originally passed, it included a provision that required employers to provide contraception coverage with no co-pays or shared costs. This prompted a furious backlash from organizations that opposed birth control on religious grounds. In response to the backlash, the Obama administration is offering a compromise that would still guarantee employees of religious affiliated institutions access to birth control without requiring it to be in any way subsidized by the respective religious organizations.
Under the new modifications, faith-based institutions such as hospitals and universities will not be mandated to provide health care coverage for their employees that directly includes contraception. Their employees would instead receive a stand-alone, private insurance policy that would provide contraceptive coverage at no cost.
In other words, upon enrolling the employee of an objecting religious organization in a health insurance plan provided directly by the employer, the health insurance company will then be required to automatically enroll the employee in an entirely separate plan that would provide contraception free of charge. The faith-based employer would not “have to contract, arrange, pay or refer for any contraceptive coverage to which they object on religious grounds.”
The changes have so far garnered a positive response. “The rules proposed today by HHS appear to go a long way toward rectifying the most problematic provisions of the mandate,” said Bill Donohue, head of the Catholic League.
