President Donald Trump and his administration rolled back a federal requirement last month mandating that employers include birth control coverage in their health insurance plans. The Trump administration did this in order to allow employers whose religious beliefs are against birth control to forego that coverage.
The Birth Control Mandate passed in 2012 required employers to offer contraceptive coverage at no cost to their female employees.
At that time, St. Joe’s insurance provider, Independence Blue Cross, had to cover birth control for employees on the university’s insurance plans, even though St. Joe’s is a Roman Catholic university. The Catholic Church objects to the use of birth control.
“Prior to Obama signing the Affordable Care Act, there was nothing that you would consider as ‘women health services’ that was covered, but to comply with the law, those services were added,” said Matthew Petitt, M.S., director for compensation, benefits and human resources information systems.
President Trump’s mandate allows for more employers to reject contraceptive coverage due to religious or moral objections.
“Trump’s mandate says that basically any organization can say that their certain beliefs preclude the provision of birth control,” said Lucy Ford, Ph.D., assistant professor of management.
Petitt said as of now, the university does not plan to change its birth control coverage.
“We will probably keep our policies the same and see how this mandate plays out, but I don’t know if other Jesuit schools will do the same,” Petitt said. “For everyone it will be different, but for us, it’s just about keeping that service level that we already have without making too many changes.”
While many women use birth control for contraception prevention, others use it to treat medical issues such as acne and menstrual pain.
“In this case, the government could look at the situation and say ‘there are other things to treat acne, go get Accutane,’” Petitt said.
Ann Green, Ph.D., professor of English and member of the gender studies committee, said the rollback is “another aspect of Trump’s war on women.”
“If women are to be seen fully as human beings,then we need credit for being capable of our own decision making,” Green said. “Birth control is part of health care so it needs to be a right.”
