Press Release  AG Campbell Co-leads Coalition in Supporting Increased Access to Birth Control Coverage

BOSTON — Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell today co-led a coalition of 22 attorneys general in calling on the Biden Administration to limit dangerous Trump-era rules that allow employers to interfere in the reproductive health decisions of their employees. The Trump Administration rules added broad, unreasonable exemptions to the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) requirement for employers to include birth control coverage in their health insurance plans, allowing nearly all types of employers to deny contraception coverage to employees based on religious or moral objections. 

In a letter sent Monday welcoming the Biden Administration's proposal to rescind parts of the Trump-era rules, the coalition of attorneys general highlighted that expanding access to birth control would help women live healthy, happy, and empowered lives.  

 “While we applaud the Biden administration’s efforts to roll back his predecessor’s limits on women and people having access to contraceptive services, we are encouraging the administration to do even more," AG Campbell said. "Preventive services, including contraceptive services, at no cost to the employee are essential in addressing healthcare inequities – and give people control of their own health and more opportunity through jobs, education and financial empowerment.”

The ACA’s contraceptive coverage mandate was signed into law in 2010 to correct historic inequities in women’s health care. It required all covered employers and sponsors of health plans to cover the cost of preventive services necessary for women’s health, including contraceptive services, at no cost to the employee. It is estimated that more than 62 million women, including more than 1.5 million in Massachusetts, have benefited from the ACA’s birth control coverage mandate. Studies have shown that access to contraceptive care supports people's ability to control their own reproductive health, and promotes access to education, jobs, and financial empowerment. 

After the Trump Administration issued broad religious and moral exemptions that allowed employers to stop providing contraceptive coverage if they had religious or moral objections, between 70,500 and 126,400 people are estimated to have lost birth control coverage. The exemptions did not even require the employees to be informed before they lost coverage - the employer could simply object and never let the employee know. 

In February, the Biden Administration proposed new regulations to address these problems. The proposed regulation would: 

• Rescind the Trump-era moral exemption rule; 

• Retain the Trump-era religious exemption rule; and 
• Create an Individual Contraceptive Arrangement (ICA) to ensure that patients enrolled in health plans or coverage sponsored by objecting entities would still have the opportunity to obtain contraceptive services at no cost. 

In the coalition’s letter, addressed to U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra, U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, and Acting U.S. Labor Secretary Julie Su, the coalition of attorneys general welcome the Biden Administration proposal to improve access to cost-free contraceptive coverage. The coalition letter further supports rescinding the moral exemption, and urges the Biden Administration to narrow or rescind the religious exemption, and make necessary improvements to the ICA, including: 

• Expanding the ICA to include a wider spectrum of individuals who are excluded from contraceptive coverage; 
• Carrying out a publicity and outreach campaign to inform patients and providers about the ICA and help them enroll in it; and 

• Providing additional protections to secure patients’ privacy, safeguard them from retaliation, and create a process for contesting medical bills. 

The Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office sued the Trump Administration in October 2017 in the U.S. District Court in Massachusetts, challenging the administration’s rules authorizing any employer with religious or moral objection to contraception to block their employees and employees’ dependents from receiving insurance coverage for contraception. The complaint alleged that the rules were unlawful, including because they discriminated against women and allowed the federal government to endorse certain religious beliefs over a woman’s right to make choices about her own health care. And in 2020, the office co-led a Supreme Court brief in defense of a separate lawsuit challenging the Trump Administration’s rules. 

The letter was co-led by AG Campbell, California Attorney General Rob Bonta, Pennsylvania Attorney General Michelle Henry, and New Jersey Attorney General Matthew J. Platkin and joined by the attorneys general of Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington, and the District of Columbia. 

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