The Trump administration is poised to fulfill a long-awaited promise to many Americans by reversing Obamacare’s mandate that requires most employers to provide free contraception to their workers through health insurance plans, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reports.
According to the report:
Federal health officials are expected to finalize a regulation that would allow employers with religious or moral objections to birth control to omit coverage for contraception from their workers’ plans, according to two people familiar with its contents. The regulation closely mirrors an earlier, leaked draft, they said.
Such a rule would protect a larger group of employers from the contraception mandate than the “closely held” private companies – such as Hobby Lobby – which the U.S. Supreme Court ruled could be exempt due to religious objections.
The mandate was inserted into Obamacare by the former Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) secretary Kathleen Sebelius – an abortion activist – and bureaucrats in her department. Following objections by many religious employers to the requirements of the mandate, the Obama administration devised “accommodations” that only gave the appearance the religious groups would not be either footing the bill for, or passively approving of, the federal government’s mandate of the offensive contraceptive drugs and sterilization procedures.
