Trump Religion Rule Curbs Obamacare’s Birth Control Coverage

  • ACA required employers to cover contraceptives, other services
  • Changes create wide exemptions; ACLU filed suit to oppose rule

Birth control

Photographer: Peter Ardito/Getty Images
Lock
This article is for subscribers only.

The Trump administration will let employers opt out of providing health plans that cover birth control, weakening a requirement put in place by the Affordable Care Act as part of a wider push to expand religious freedom.

The shift would broaden an Obama-era religious exemption from providing contraception coverage to more for-profit corporations and others not included in an earlier workaround. It would also permit employers to decide against offering contraception coverage for “moral,” rather than religious, reasons.