Final HHS Rules on Birth Control

(Updated 6/28/2013, 2:45 EDT)

Health and Human Services today released the new rules on the birth control mandate under the Affordable Care Act.  A good summary was provided by the New York Times:

Under the rule issued on Friday, the government said that certain “religious employers” — primarily houses of worship — may exclude contraceptive coverage from their health plans for employees and their dependents. In effect, they will be exempt from the federal requirement to provide contraceptive coverage.

The rule also lays out what the administration describes as an accommodation for other nonprofit religious and church-affiliated organizations that object to contraceptive coverage, like hospitals and institutions of higher education.

Under the rule, these organizations will not have to contract, arrange or pay for contraceptive coverage to which they object on religious grounds.

Instead, the administration said, such coverage will be “separately provided to women enrolled in their health plans at no cost.”

Under this arrangement, a nonprofit religious employer must notify its insurer that it objects to contraceptive coverage. The insurer must then notify people in the health plan that it will provide them with payments for contraceptive services as long as they remain in the health plan.

Many employers serve as their own insurers and hire outside companies to administer benefits and pay claims.

In such cases, the administration said, the “third-party administrator” must inform people in an employer-sponsored health plan that it is “providing or arranging separate no-cost payments for contraceptive services.”

Moreover, according to the Health Watch Blog at The Hill:

Insurance companies enlisted to provide contraception under these accommodations will receive a rebate from the federal government to offset the cost.