What a Supreme Court Review Could Mean for Your Contraceptive Coverage

Last Wednesday, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on whether employer health insurance plans should be permitted to declare religious or moral exemptions to the Affordable Care Act’s contraceptive mandate. It rejected two challenges to the exemptions to the ACA’s mandate that had been issued by the Trump administration in 2017.

What is the contraceptive mandate, and what does this Supreme Court ruling mean for you? Read on to learn more about the history of this legislation, where it stands today, and how policy changes may affect you as a patient.

If you suddenly find yourself unable to afford birth control contraceptives because your employer no longer covers the cost, use RxSaver to find prescription coupons for your medication.

How Did We Get Here?

The history of the contraceptive mandate can seem a bit convoluted. Here’s a timeline to make it easier to see how we got to where we are today.

• 2010: The Obama administration rolls out the Affordable Care Act (ACA), which has a provision that requires employer group health insurance plans to cover no-cost birth control for their employees. It classifies birth control as preventive medicine; therefore, employers are required to provide it in the same way that they provide other preventive medications, such as blood pressure drugs. Houses of worship and churches are exempt from this rule, but nonprofit groups (such as schools and hospitals with religious affiliations) are not.
• 2011: The Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) adds a stipulation to the ACA that insurers must provide coverage for at least one generic version of all 18 FDA-approved contraception methods. This means most women are no longer paying “out of pocket” for their birth control.
• 2018: The Trump administration finalizes its rules that offset the ACA’s contraceptive provision and allow more employers to opt out of providing birth control methods at no cost. Federal judges in two courts stop the rules from taking effect.
• 2019: The 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decides that the Trump administration’s rules would “impose an undue burden” on female employees who would lose coverage under their employer insurance plans.
• 2020: The Supreme Court decides to take up two cases involving the contraceptive mandate, including the appeal from the Trump administration. These cases will likely be heard this April.

What are the Possible Outcomes?

If the Supreme Court review agrees with the 3rd Circuit Court’s opinion and finds that the Trump administration’s new rules are unreasonable, those rules may be rendered ineffective. This would mean that employer-provided access to no-cost birth control would continue, under the ACA, for most women (the exceptions in place from the Obama administration for churches or houses of worship would remain).

If the Supreme Court review upholds the Trump administration’s new rules, they could then be implemented. This could reduce access to employer-provided no-cost birth control, as more employers could opt out, meaning that more women could end up having to pay “out of pocket” for their contraceptive method.

What Does This Mean for You?

If you are concerned about how you may be affected by these policy changes, you are not alone. Nearly 65% of women in the U.S. between the ages of 15 and 49 are currently using a method of contraception. The most common form of birth control is the oral contraceptive pill, which is a prescription medication that is currently covered under the ACA’s contraceptive mandate at no cost. According to the NIH, one-quarter of women aged 25 to 44 who use birth control use this form of medicine.

These are the most commonly prescribed birth control options:

• Norgestimate/ethinyl estradiol (such as Sprintec, Ortho Tri-Cyclen, TriNessa)
• Drospirenone/ethinyl estradiol (such as Yaz, Yasmin)
• Norethindrone (such as Micronor, and other progestin-only pills)
• Norelgestromin/ethinyl estradiol (Ortho Evra)
• Etonogestrel/ethinyl estradiol (NuvaRing)

Other contraceptive options include intrauterine devices (IUDs), diaphragm, hormonal implants or patches, a hormonal vaginal ring, hormonal injections, condoms, and female sterilization.

Fortunately, regardless of where this current legal battle lands, RxSaver offers affordable generic birth control options. You can use the RxSaver platform to look up the price of your current birth control method to see which low-cost generic options are available for you.