The Trump administration plans to give employers the option notto cover birth control in their health insurance plans,weakening a requirement put in place by the Affordable Care Act.

The rule would broaden a religious exemption from providingcontraception coverage that was put in place by the Obamaadministration to more for-profit corporations and others notincluded in an earlier workaround, according to Trumpadministration officials.

The officials briefed reporters on the rule Friday on conditionthat the officials not be identified.

About 200 employers that are involved in suing the governmentover the requirement to provide contraception coverage would likelytake advantage of the rule change, the administration estimates.That could affect about 120,000 women, the administrationsaid.

The administration also announced guidelines to help insurerscomply with a requirement that those in the Obamacare exchangessegregate funds used for abortions to ensure tax dollars don’t gotoward the procedure.

Religious pushback

The ACA required employers to cover birth control and an arrayof other preventive health services with no out-of-pocket costs.The Obama administration had allowed some religious organizationsto opt out of the contraceptive requirement, but the religiousgroups said that the exemption process didn’t go far enough.

Obamacare required coverage for a broad range of contraceptiveoptions, according to the Kaiser FamilyFoundation, including surgical sterilization, pills, andintrauterine devices. Before it went into effect, about 21 percentof women ages 15 to 44 with employer-provided health coveragereported spending their own money on birth-control pills, accordingto Kaiser. That fell to 3.6 percent in 2014.

The Planned Parenthood Federation of America said most women usebirth control and coverage shouldn’t be controversial.

“It’s basic health care that the vast majority of women will usein their lifetime,” said Dana Singiser, vice president forgovernment relations and public policy. “We are talking about afundamental right.”

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