Court blocks Trump administration's efforts to roll back free birth control
Court blocks Trump administration’s efforts to roll back free birth control
Another loss in court for Trump.
AMANDA MICHELLE GOMEZ at Think Progress
https://thinkprogress.org/federal-appeals-court-blocks-trump-administrations-efforts-to-roll-back-free-birth-control-9cc403aeea1b/
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Cost-free birth control for thousands is safe for now, after a federal appeals court on Friday blocked the Trump administration’s efforts to roll back the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) contraceptive mandate.
The Third Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously upheld a district court decision issued in Januarythat blocked regulations to allow virtually all employers to opt out of covering workers’ birth control for religious or moral reasons. The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is expected to appeal the decision, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Judge Patty Schwartz, who was appointed by President Barack Obama and wrote for the court, said the ACA explicitly states that health insurance must cover preventative care, which federal officials decided later included contraceptive care. “Nowhere in the enabling statute did Congress grant the agency the authority to exempt entities from providing insurance coverage for such services,” Schwartz wrote.
While the contraceptive mandate is very popular among the general public — 77 percent of women and 64 percent of men support it — the Trump administration has tried to weaken it for Catholic employers who sued the Obama administration over the mandate in the past. But the decisions to those lawsuits weren’t as far-reaching as religious groups would like, so Trump officials sought to exempt them entirely.
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