Obama Eases Contraception Rules for Religious Groups

UPDATE: President Obama, confident that he's now met both the preventative healthcare needs of women and the religious liberty claims of organizations opposed to birth control, announced on Friday a compromise to the health reform law's contraception coverage requirements for employers.

"Under the rule, women will still have access to free preventative care that includes contraceptive services no matter where they work," he said at the White House, adding, "no religious insitution will have to provide these services directly." 

The new version of the requirement will allow religious organizations to remove themselves from direct involvement in covering contraceptives. Instead, Obama said, "if a woman works at a charity or hospital that opposes contraception, the insurance company is reuqireed to reach out and provide without charge."

Religious organizations had originally been given an extra year to comply with the requirement, during which, Obama said, his administration was to work towards a fair solution for those organizations opposing birth control.

Citing "political football" and the opposition of the Catholic church to the original rules, Obama said that his administration had sped up the process of finding a solution. The original year-long extension for compliance is now gone, and all employers and insurance companies will be required to abide by the new rules starting in August.

The details of the plan are still vague, and some are wondering how, exactly, the new rules will play out come August. The Washington Post has an interesting piece up already examining a possible "catch" in Obama's compromise.

Update Friday, Feb. 10: Looks like a compromise on what was thought to be a final decision requiring many religious employers to provide health insurance that covers co-pay free birth control is coming sooner rather than later. 

The Associated Press is reporting that Obama will announce on Friday a new plan that accommodates some religious groups opposed to the requirement. Sources tell the newswire that under the plan, religious employers will not have to cover birth control for their employees, and that insurance companies will instead be the ones directly responsible for providing free contraception.

The decision comes after an outcry from conservative religious leaders, especially Roman Catholics. The administration has apparently decided that they risk losing Catholic support in the November elections if the requirements are not eased, and have sought to calm the storm with what is expected to be a more broad religious exemption from the health insurance requirement.

Under the current rules, houses of worship and churches are exempt from the requirement, but Catholic or religious universities, schools and hospitals, for instance, are not. Those institutions had been given an extra year to comply, making the rules effective for them in August 2013. All other employers will have to meet the requirement, which was part of the health care reform law, by August of this year.

So far, the plan has support from both the Catholic Health Association and Planned Parenthood. Obama is expected to announce the change himself at 12:15 p.m. from the White House.

Update Wednesday, Feb. 8: One poll indicating broad support for the policy isn't going to change the fact that the health reform law's requirement for co-pay-free birth control in employer-provided health insurance plans is a hot-button social issue coming to a head in an election year.

So it's not entirely surprising that Obama's "final" decision to keep a narrow interpretation of religious exemptions to the requirement might not be final after all. David Axelrod, as Politico notes, made some comments on MSNBC's Morning Joe on Tuesday that indicate a compromise might still be on the table.

“I heard earlier Joe [Scarborough] say, ‘Well, there may be compromises that can be reached" Axelrod said, adding, "we certainly don’t want to abridge anyone’s religious freedoms, so we’re going to look for a way to move forward that both provides women with the preventive care that they need and respects the prerogatives of religious institutions.”

As it stands, many religious institutions that serve the general public—universities, schools, and hospitals, for instance—will have to meet the requirement. Churches will be exempt, however.

Post Tuesday, Feb. 7: Although Catholic Bishops and other conservative religious public figures are unhappy with the Obama administration's decision to adopt a narrow religious exemption for co-pay-free birth control in employee health insurance plans, a new poll suggests that most Americans—including a majority of Catholics—support the move to provide contraception at no cost.

The Public Religion Research Institute found that 55 percent of Americans, and 58 percent of self-identified Catholics, agree with the following statement: "Employers should be required to provide their employees with health care plans that cover contraception and birth control at no cost."

The health reform law requires that all employees who provide health insurance also provide coverage for contraception without a co-pay by Aug. 1. A religious exemption was included, but the scope of that exemption was up for debate until late last month when the Obama administration declined to expand the exemption beyond faith-based institutions whose employees are primarily of that institution's religion. As the Washington Post notes, religious organizations not meeting the exemption requirements have been given an extra year to comply.

This more controversial part of the new requirement, which affects Catholic-owned hospitals, schools, and other religious institutions that serve the general public, is also supported by a majority of Catholics in the new poll: 52 percent believe these institutions should not fall under a religious exemption from the policy. Forty-nine percent of Americans agree.

However, the numbers are lower when Catholics who are not registered to voter are removed from the equation: Just 45 percent of Catholic voters support the narrow religious exemption, while 52 percent support the general requirement for co-pay-free contraception. 

Religiously unaffiliated voters and Evangelical Protestants represented more extreme support and opposition, respectively, to the narrow religious exemptions: 59 percent of the unaffiliated support it, compared with just 31 percent of Evangelical Protestants. 

There was a significant age gap in the results, too. Fifty-eight percent of millennials support the religious exemption as it stands, but just a third of seniors do.