Courts are making fast work this week of the lawsuits challenging the Obama administration’s rule requiring insurance plans to cover contraception and stop discriminating against women.
Just one day after a federal court in Nebraska threw out a lawsuit brought by seven anti-Affordable Care Act attorneys general, a federal court in D.C. did the same in a case filed by a religiously affiliated college. On Wednesday, a federal judge dismissed the lawsuit filed by Belmont Abbey College (the first of the two dozen challenges to the birth control rule).
In the past several weeks, as a nation, we’ve been hit by an endless barrage of commentary on the new rule requiring insurance companies to cover contraception with no co-pay. Who would have thought that in 2012, contraception — something 98 percent of women use at some point in their lives — could set off such a firestorm?
Last week, the Obama administration offered a solution that we hope calms the embers.
Laura Murphy of our Washington Legislative Office appeared to discuss the Obama administration’s plan to retain a proposed rule that ensures new insurance plans cover contraception.
Earlier this week, Michael Gerson’s disregard for the health of women and their families appeared once again on the pages of the Washington Post.
The affront? The administration’s announcement that all new health insurance plans — except those held by churches and other houses of worship — will need to include coverage for birth control because it’s essential preventive health care for women.
Tuesday, a Nebraska federal court rejected a lawsuit challenging the Obama administration’s rule requiring insurance plans to cover contraception. This was the first of two dozen challenges to be decided. We applaud the court’s decision and hope that the judges in the other cases follow the Nebraska federal judge’s lead.
Today, the Senate rejected the notion that your boss can decide that you shouldn't have health insurance for cancer screenings, or make you pay out of your pocket for your daughter's vaccinations. But how did such an extreme proposal like the Blunt amendment make its way to the Senate in the first place?
Two words: birth control. In 2012, almost 50 years after the Supreme Court first protected the right to contraception, and although virtually all women, of every religious background, use birth control at some point in their lives, some in Congress are leaving no stone unturned in an effort to roll back access to contraception.
By Sarah Lipton-Lubet, ACLU Washington Legislative Office & Dena Sher, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 6:17pm
Yesterday's House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform hearing on the new HHS rule that requires insurance plans to include birth control with no co-pay (except for those held by churches or religiously affiliated nonprofits like universities) has causedquite a stir. A few observations:
