KAILUA-KONA — The state’s attorney general on Friday joined with 17 other attorneys general to warn of potential legal action against the Trump administration over a new federal policy that will allow more businesses to opt out of providing no-cost
KAILUA-KONA — The state’s attorney general on Friday joined with 17 other attorneys general to warn of potential legal action against the Trump administration over a new federal policy that will allow more businesses to opt out of providing no-cost birth control by claiming a religious or moral objection.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced the new policy Friday.
Formerly, employers were required to offer health insurance plans covering all contraceptive medications and devices approved by the Food and Drug Administration.
The new rules, according to Health and Human Services, allow entities with “sincerely held religious beliefs” against providing those services to opt out of doing so. A second rule gave the same allowance to organizations and small businesses with objections “on the basis of moral conviction” not based on any particular religious belief.
It’s unclear exactly how the new guidance will affect residents of Hawaii; neither the Department of Labor and Industrial Relations nor the State of Hawaii Insurance Division were able to provide details about the new policy’s impact Friday evening.
In a letter to the acting secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services and the secretaries of the Departments of Labor and the Treasury, Hawaii Attorney General Doug Chin and others said rolling back the coverage requirement “will take away women’s autonomy to make their own reproductive decisions and put those decisions in the hands of their employers.”
“Women should have coverage for their critical health care just as men do,” wrote the AGs. “Implementation of this rule will surely result in legal challenges on the basis of sex discrimination because of its exclusive impact on women.”
According to the National Women’s Law Center, more than 266,000 women in Hawaii have preventive services coverage with zero cost sharing.
Under the state’s Insurance Code, employer group accident and health or sickness plans can’t exclude contraceptive services or supplies for subscribers or their dependents.
That law specifically excludes “religious employers” from that requirement, but that term is specifically defined in law.
In order to be considered a religious employer, the code requires that the entity’s primary business not only be the teaching of religious values, but also that the entity primarily employs adherents of that religion and be a nonprofit organization.
Employers that invoke the exemption have to give employees written notice upon their enrollment about what contraceptive services the employer refuses to cover and how enrollees can directly access contraceptive services and supplies.
