The Trump administration has finalized two new rules that allow employers more flexibility in denying birth control coverage for women.

CNN reports that although the Affordable Care Act mandates that health insurance plans cover birth control as a preventive measure, the Department of Health and Human Services has issued a final rule that provides exemption from the contraceptive coverage mandate to entities that object to such coverage based on religious beliefs. The second finalized rule provides exemption to nonprofit organizations and small businesses that may have nonreligious moral convictions to such coverage.

The new rules “could leave millions of women without access to birth control and reverse some of the important public health progress made under the Affordable Care Act in recent years,” Clare Coleman, president and CEO of the National Family Planning & Reproductive Health Association, a national organization that represents publicly funded family planning providers and administrators, said in a statement.

Coleman added, “Family planning has been designated one of top ten public health achievements of the 21st century. It is baffling that the administration would support any policy that could diminish access to this essential preventive care.”

“The religious and moral exemptions provided by these rules also apply to institutions of education, issuers, and individuals. The Departments are not extending the moral exemption to publicly traded businesses, or either exemption to government entities,” HHS said in a news release.

In 2017, HHS officials claimed the rule would not affect “99.9 percent of women” in the U.S., basing that percentage on the many women not in their childbearing years among the 165 million women in America. It claimed that a maximum of 120,000 women would be affected, chiefly workers at the approximately 200 entities that have been involved in 50 or so lawsuits over birth control coverage.

However, policy experts believe that the new rules could lead to “hundreds of employers dropping coverage” and fails to take into account the many women who use birth control pills for such conditions as endometriosis and hormonal imbalances.

“There is no way to know how many women will be affected,” Alina Salganicoff, director of women's health policy at the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonprofit that focuses on health policy research and communications, said in a statement.

Read more:

Instant Insights /

New Trump rules cut birth control access

More From HR Executive

Related Stories

Recommended For You