CFI on the Trump administration’s new rule letting godbothering employers refuse to include birth control in their employees’ health insurance:

The Center for Inquiry condemned the new rules announced by the Department of Health and Human Services, dramatically curtailing the effectiveness of the Affordable Care Act’s Contraceptive Mandate.

Under the new rules, any employer may claim an exemption to the requirement to provide contraceptive coverage without co-payment, whether the employer’s objection is based on religious grounds or any other moral reasoning. This fundamentally undercuts the purpose and operation of the Contraceptive Mandate, a rule that was effective in ensuring broad access to reproductive health care for women.

The Contraceptive Mandate, a key part of the Obama administration’s signature health care reform, required health insurance to cover FDA-approved methods of contraception without co-payment by the insured party. In doing so, it significantly increased availability of critical reproductive health insurance to women across America, who, previously, had often been compelled to pay significant out-of-pocket costs to access such essential care.

Out-of-pocket costs in addition to their insurance premiums. The birth control coverage isn’t free, it’s included in the insurance – except, now, when the godbotherers say no it isn’t.

Limiting contraception coverage has long been the objective of religious right groups. The religious right provided President Trump with a significant part of his support in the election. “This represents a shocking step backwards in American health care,” said Nick Little, Vice President and General Counsel of the Center for Inquiry. “At the behest of their allies in the religious right, the President and this Administration have determined that a woman’s access to affordable, essential health care must be subordinated to the religious whims of her employer.”

The Center for Inquiry submitted amicus briefs in both the Hobby Lobby and Zubik cases, and will continue to seek to defend broad, affordable access to contraception and other reproductive health care.

Robyn Blumner, President and CEO of the Center for Inquiry, added, “On these grounds what’s to stop the Trump Administration allowing employers to exclude blood transfusions from insurance coverage because Jehovah’s Witnesses object? Medical insurance is a benefit of employment. Giving employers the ability to dictate those benefits on religious grounds draws employees into their employer’s religion as a condition of employment. This is bad for women and a pluralistic society.”

The thing about the blood transfusions is that it would have an impact on men as well as women. The birth control thing hits women. They like that.