The Trump Administration is preparing a rule that will allow religious employers to not provide contraception to their employees.
Federal officials, following through on a pledge by President Trump, have drafted a rule to roll back a federal requirement that many religious employers provide birth control coverage in health insurance plans….
the policy change is embodied in an interim final rule, it could take effect immediately upon publication in the Federal Register.
The pragmatic impact is that anyone who works for a religious employer and is looking to not have kids for several years should schedule an appointment for a long acting reversible contraceptive as soon as possible if that is something that you were already thinking about.
The second point is mechanical. There are changes to the ACA that can be done through rule making authority. Some of those changes will have a pragmatic lag between when a change can be made and when an insurer will actually make the change. This is not one of those situations. The mechanics of individualizing plans en masse with a rider that triggers three or four distinct denials is something that can be done quickly. The biggest challenge is making sure the test environment is clear of any other projects for a day or two to run dummy claims. After that a DBA or two is needed to upload new values to a system reference table.
Insurers won’t foot drag on this mid-year benefit update as birth control is on net a wash compared to unplanned pregnancy costs. It won’t change their profitability.
So if you were thinking about a LARC, go get one as soon as you can if you work for a religiously affiliated employer.
Patricia Kayden
Because whether or not a grown woman has a child is her employer’s personal concern. Got it.
Great suggestion.
MomSense
@Patricia Kayden:
Ain’t that something? I’m glad my baby making days are no longer under Republican influence,
Jerzy Russian
Won’t this result in more abortions in the long run (not that Trump gives a shit about that)?
A non mouse
Anecdotally, I’ve had an uptick in LARC placements…
David Anderson
@Jerzy Russian: Yes… but they get to rail against society going downhill in that scenario
Chet
Under his eye.
Patricia Kayden
@Jerzy Russian: Do you think that Pence is going to allow all those slutty women to get abortions? Hell naw. Just wait until Gorsuch gets his paws on Roe v. Wade. We’re living in Gilead from HANDMAID’S TALE.
Lee
It would be nice if the insurance companies just decided to say ‘fuck it, birth control is covered in every policy just like XX’. ‘XX’ being something every policy covers like vaccines(?).
Starfish
s/impactr/impact/
Ryan
Nah man, I know what’s going on. They’re just incentivizing your freedom to seek employment with secularists and atheists! Why do you hate freedom?
But her emals!!!
This is the most irritating part of all this. The justification is that religious employers shouldn’t have to pay for BC because it apparently violates their religions rights. There is no net cost of adding BC to most plans. They cost the same with and without BC due to the impact of unwanted pregnancies.
matryoshka
What’s tricky is determining who is a “religious” employer. It seems like something anyone can pull out of their pocket when it is useful to control or bother others.
Miss Bianca
@MomSense: you and me both. Damn, the War on Women never ends, does it? There are brief lulls in the combat, but never a ceasefire.
FlipYrWhig
@matryoshka: IMNSHO there are no “religious employers.” The religion doesn’t structure the employer-employee relationship. If I’m the janitor at a Catholic church, are my duties in any way religious or doctrinal? The answer is no. If I teach literature at a Baptist college, are my duties in any way religious or doctrinal? No again. Seems to me that there are very, very few employer-employee relationships that have anything whatsoever to do with religion. IANAL.
El Caganer
Trump doesn’t give a shit about birth control or abortion. He cares about reversing any and all laws or regulations that Obama had anything to do with. Hell of a decision-making process.
MomSense
@Miss Bianca:
Never fucking ends. My mom was ranting about it yesterday. She’s been fighting this crap for 60+ years already.
matryoshka
@FlipYrWhig: It gets confusing for me, because Hobby Lobby, a freaking crafts store, was at the forefront of denying workers contraception. And where I live, administrators at a state-funded university were instrumental in cutting off Planned Parenthood funding based on antiabortion sentiment. It seems like the employer never has to be overtly flying their Taliban flag to implement this particular agenda.
Honus
@matryoshka: exactly. I’m still trying to grok the reasoning behind Hobby Lobby having religious beliefs since ownership and management are separate entities as an indivisible of a corporation. A corporation by definition cannot have religious beliefs. Certainly its stockholders can, but the principle behind the corporate liability shield is that the owners technically do not manage the corporation, and that the corporation exists solely for the financial benefit of the shareholders. Second year law, Ford v Dodge.
matryoshka
Well, I wonder if that’s true now that corporations are people and the United States is being reinvented as a “Christian” nation by these fascists.
Honus
@But her emals!!!: even better, I’d like to see the denial of birth control result in higher health care cost from unplanned pregnancies and abortions. Then religious employers could pay a premium to enforce their beliefs.
Sort of like if a company had a religious objection to anti-cholesterol drugs, and as result had to pay for more bypass operations.
Nicole
Wouldn’t it be nice if insurance companies decided to charge companies that didn’t want contraceptives covered more to provide insurance, under the logic that their employees were more likely to have an unplanned pregnancy, with the accompanying increase in costs? It’s funny how people’s religious beliefs often wilt like cut snapdragons when confronted with the possibility of increased cost to them.
randy khan
No surprise, of course. And the people who once said that Trump would not govern like a standard issue Republican are again proven wrong.
Villago Delenda Est
“Religious employers” can fuck off and die. Put these vile creatures up against walls and let the lead fly.
hovercraft
@randy khan:
The people who said that weren’t paying attention, Dense was picked as a sop to the base. Which meant that there would be a load voice pushing for base policies, if Twitler has a guiding philosophy other than greed, it’s sticking it to the people who don’t worship him. What better revenge that overturning Roe, forcing women to bear the “stain” of an illegitimate child for their sins, remember all the child stuff is the woman’s problem. In his mind Planned Parenthood, and all these women’s things are used by those people, not white women, and those people voted for Hillary so he’s getting back at them. Maybe if someone were to point out to him that white people use all services more than anyone else, he’d care? Hell no, that would fall in the “fake” category.
randy khan
@hovercraft:
I totally agree.
I always thought that anyone who believed in the best case scenario (Trump not crazy, governs somewhat unpredictably but from the middle) really didn’t understand what was going on. I think of what’s happening now as something like the 90% worst scenario (we get standard Republican policies, plus all the bad stuff Trump actually promised, plus he blunders about in nearly every way possible, but no nuclear war (yet)), but it also was the most probable scenario if he was elected.
FlipYrWhig
@matryoshka: Yeah, again, IANAL, but the whole chain of decisions up to and since Hobby Lobby just seems misbegotten and utterly ludicrous.
burnspbesq
There will be litigation, and if the courts even-handedly apply State Farm the reg will be invalidated.
Yes, I know that’s a non-trivial “if.”
Also too, what is this “interim final rule” boolsheet? Notice and comment, assholes, notice and comment.
hovercraft
Re-posting from downstairs.
Looks like someone is getting desperate. They must have explained to him again that Turtle, ZEGS and him can’t just ram things down America’s throat like they were always accusing Obama of doing.
I guess all the talk on cable about how Republicans on the hill are frustrated and scared that nothing is going to get done, the money men are also scared that the Russia shenanigans mean that they won’t get their tax cuts is pissing him off. Trip was a disaster to everyone except the WH, his agenda such as it is, a disaster, being forced to respond to one of his fans being a terrorist, also too:Trump’s Approval Rating Drops to New Low of 36%, I know Rasmussen probably has him at 50 or something, but everywhere he turns he’s getting hit, the poor man must be beside himself. I hope someone is making sure that he doesn’t get too closes to the “football”, Kim launched another missile, making him look bad, we’re up to 9 launches since he took office!
? ?? Goku ? ?
Jesus Christ, birth control is an issue still? Who gives a fuck if someone uses birth control or not. It should be covered. It’s about reproductive health, not some loser’s moral hangups. And let’s be real: this is about money as well.
hovercraft
@randy khan:
I think that the reception his trip got and the Russia shit makes this a dangerous time, the tweets no longer provide the distraction they used to, so he needs to up his game. I’m not saying he’ll go nuclear, but he could let some missile fly, the media loved it last time, declaring him to be “presidential”, so why not try that again?
burnspbesq
@? ?? Goku ? ?:
Tens of millions of voters care, as I’m sure you know. A surprisingly small number of them are Catholics, but the nutbag “evangelicals” are another story.
? ?? Goku ? ?
@hovercraft: The media will only love it so long as missles aren’t blowing them up.
hovercraft
@? ?? Goku ? ?:
I really don’t think the money is the big thing, pregnancy is a lot more expensive than birth control. It’s about control, remember the thing that brought women into the workforce en masse was birth control, once they could control that, they were no longer at the mercy of their husbands, they were then free to have sex with whomever they wanted without being forced to bear a child. Birth control gave women the power over how they lived their lives, and that has never sat well with those who liked and wanted to maintain a patriarchal society. Money is a fig leaf, it’s about controlling women, period.
Villago Delenda Est
@hovercraft: It’s about destroying the agency of women.
Which makes me very angry in the green rage monster sense.
? ?? Goku ? ?
@hovercraft: That’s definitely a big part of it, I agree.
Steve in the ATL
@FlipYrWhig:
You are correct: from a legal perspective they make no sense whatsoever. They were purely political decisions with a bunch of BS legal reasoning thrown together to justify the result the rwnj’s wanted.
? ?? Goku ? ?
@burnspbesq: I’ve always had a greater respect for Catholicism than Protestantism, mainly because the former places a great deal more importance on doing good works than the latter. IOW, doing something good in the here and now, is what will get you rewarded
Steve in the ATL
@? ?? Goku ? ?: not all Protestants are fundie nut cases, just as not all Catholics are closeted gay pedophiles. Episcopalians, Presbyterians, and to a lesser extent Methodists are generally quite reasonable.
? ?? Goku ? ?
@Steve in the ATL: Mainline are ok. I was speaking generally
gvg
@? ?? Goku ? ?: Protestantism is every Christian derived sect except Catholicism and Orthodox. They are not at all homogenous. Some place a lot of importance on good works. Remember, they were rebelling against what really was a corrupt Catholic church which was selling forgiveness. the protestants started splitting from each other pretty quickly but may of them just wanted to be better more sincere Catholics.
That one of the things that gets my goat about the America should be a Christian nation fools. They don’t know history. Religious freedom was specifically so you didn’t get told what to believe by political leaders and it was caused by Christians warring with Christians not any interest at all in the other religions. They are setting them selves up for getting burned at the stake by their current allies any other Christians.
? ?? Goku ? ?
@gvg: Thanks for the education. It’s always good to learn new things
NorthLeft12
@Patricia Kayden: I know this is not always a workable option, but how about not working for a “religious” company/business. WTF does that mean anyway? How can a business operate legally [ie. without discriminating] if religion becomes a key part of their operations?
Funny, I thought your country was partly founded on the principle of freedom of worship?
But I guess the religious types are free to discriminate against those that do not worship at all, or if they worship the wrong way.
TooManyJens
It seems to me that employer-provided health insurance is compensation, and employees being able to use their insurance to access contraception is no more an infringement of the employer’s religious freedom than employees being able to use their paychecks to buy condoms (or alcohol, or pork, or whatever is religiously incorrect).
Granted that health insurance is different because by necessity it does have limits. But those decisions should be made on a medical basis (i.e., not covering ineffective treatments), not a ‘moral’ one.
NorthLeft12
@Nicole: Your response seems to me to be completely logical. Therefore I feel very confident in saying that these same “religious” businesses will weasel out of that coverage too.
NorthLeft12
@TooManyJens:
Yikes!! Don’t give these hypocrites any ideas Jen.
TenguPhule
@? ?? Goku ? ?:
Obviously you weren’t paying attention in 2013-2015.
The shit stain Republicans have always been at war with Woman Parts. And the women attached to them.
TooManyJens
@NorthLeft12: This might actually need to get addressed. More employees are getting paid with debit cards these days. We’re not too far from a time when they could be encoded so that they can’t be used to buy certain items. Under the Hobby Lobby reasoning, what’s to stop employers from doing that?
David Anderson
@Nicole: On a wide enough risk pool contraception and unplanned pregnancies are about a break even proposition. The benefits of reduced costs from long acting reversible contraception don’t all accrue in the policy year the LARC is paid for.
Uncle G
@Patricia Kayden: @Patricia Kayden: You make it the employers’ concern when you mandate that they pay for things that change the likelihood.
workworkwork
@NorthLeft12: The problem comes when your employer is purchased by a religious organization. For example, the Catholic church buys a hospital and suddenly that hospital can no longer provide abortions.