The Biden administration has quietly repealed a proposed rule that would have forced employers to include contraceptive coverage in their employees' health plans even when they morally object.
The Departments of Health and Human Services (HHS), Department of Labor, and Department of the Treasury published the following notice in the Federal Register on Monday: to finalize these rules. ”
They also said they would like to consider the proposal further “in light of the amount and breadth of comments received.” The departments received a total of 44,825 comments from “a wide range of stakeholders, including employers, health insurance issuers, state exchanges, state regulators, labor unions, and individuals,” according to the notice.
regulatory changes
Under the Affordable Care Act (ACA), also known as Obamacare, employer-sponsored health plans are required to cover contraception at no additional cost to employees.
In the face of opposition from religious employers who opposed contraception, the Obama administration attempted to offer them some relief from the mandate. But given the administration's hostility toward religion, especially Christianity, it narrowed the exceptions as much as possible, allowing only nonprofit organizations to escape.
In 2014, the Supreme Court ruled in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby that “closely commercial businesses” are also exempt from the obligation.
Four years later, then-President Donald Trump's administration expanded the exemption to include employers who object to the mandate, regardless of whether that objection is religious. Politico writes, “These regulations included a mechanism for people to get contraceptive coverage, but opposing employers and universities had to agree to it.”
The Supreme Court upheld the Trump administration's regulations in 2020.
And in January 2023, the Biden administration proposed a now-rescinded rule that would remove exemptions for employers who object on grounds other than religion. According to Politico,
The rule would also create a workaround that would allow employees of religious organizations that refuse to provide contraceptive coverage to access it for free. The report suggested that people who cannot obtain contraceptives through their employers should be able to obtain them free of charge directly from their health care provider.
The administration estimated the rule would affect more than 100 employers and nearly 130,000 employees.
In a press release announcing the proposed regulations, HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra said:
Thanks to the ACA, the Biden-Harris administration is helping to ensure that women around the world have access to the contraceptives they need, when they need them, so access and coverage of contraception has never been greater. It has become even more important. -Pocket cost. Today's proposed rule…says to women across the country: We're here for you.
Deregulation
The Biden administration's decision to rescind the proposed rule means the Trump administration's rule remains in effect. Employers can opt out of providing contraceptives for moral or religious reasons.
This is not surprising. Despite the Supreme Court's tortuous 2012 ruling, the federal government is not given the constitutional power to mandate private health insurance and the power to override an individual's religious or moral beliefs. is certainly not given.
Indeed, employers should be free to provide comprehensive contraceptive coverage, none at all, or something in between, for moral or other reasons. The use of force (i.e., violence or the threat of violence) to achieve one's desired ends, as Obamacare does, has no place in a supposedly free society.
In fact, even if the Biden administration had not repealed the rule, it almost certainly would have been repealed by the incoming Trump administration. But by rescinding the document, President Joe Biden blocked President Trump from rewriting it and putting it on the docket immediately without going through the full approval process. That's why Biden is repealing various other proposed rules, so it wouldn't be surprising to see contraceptive mandates repealed for the same reason.
Regulation commemoration ceremony
The Beckett Fund for Religious Freedom celebrated Biden's repeal of contraceptive regulations. Ms. Beckett represented the Little Sisters of the Poor, an order of nuns that care for poor elderly people, in a lawsuit challenging the ACA's contraceptive mandate.
“Christmas came a little early this year,” Beckett gushed on X Tuesday. “This afternoon…the threat to the Sisters suddenly disappeared.”
The organization continued:
In 2011, the federal government ordered the group of nuns to park their convicts at entrances to public squares or face multimillion-dollar fines. For the sisters, it wasn't a great choice, so they fought back in court. With Beckett's help, they defeated the federal government not once but twice (in the Supreme Court) and are currently defending the department in court against a group of states led by California and Pennsylvania.
Leaders in these states say that neither the Constitution nor religion matters, and despite the Supreme Court's approval, the Trump administration's rules will strip the Sisters of their religious exemptions. They are actually filing a lawsuit.
Those lawsuits were put on hold while the Biden administration's proposed rules were underway. Now that the rule has been canceled, you can continue. Beckett hopes this will lead to “a final victory for the nuns whose sole mission is to care for the dying elderly until God calls them home.”
“One last thought: suing nuns is never a good idea,” he quipped.
