{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://bobbyscott.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/top-democrats-urge-departments-to-rescind-harmful-actions-taking-away", "Top Democrats Urge Departments to Rescind Harmful Actions Taking Away Coverage for Preventive Services for Women", "2017-12-06", "2017", "2017-12", "Democrat", "House", "VA", "Robert Scott", "S000185", "bobbyscott.house.gov", null, null, "legacy", "As originally released by the Committee on Education and the Workforce, Democrats\nWASHINGTON, D.C.\u00a0\u2013 Education and the Workforce Committee Ranking Member Bobby Scott (VA-03), Ways and Means Committee Ranking Member Richard Neal (MA-01), and Energy and Commerce Committee Ranking Member Frank Pallone Jr. (NJ-06) sent a letter to Health and Human Services Acting Secretary Eric Hargan, Department of Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta, and Department of the Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin to share their comments on the Interim Final Rules (IFRs) that allow employers and institutions of higher education to use their religious or moral beliefs to deny coverage of preventive services for women.\n\u201cIn crafting the Affordable Care Act (ACA), a core tenant was the belief that access to comprehensive care, including preventive care services and essential health benefits, would improve the lives and health of the American people. Proponents of the ACA recognized that expanding access to preventive care could result in lower costs and better health outcomes,\u201d the Members wrote. \u201cContraception coverage was then, and continues to be, a critical aspect of this overarching goal. Eviscerating this guarantee by giving employers and institutions of higher education carte blanche to opt out is contrary to the intent of Congress.\u201d\nThe members are gravely concerned that the IFRs will undo the progress made by the ACA, which ensures that women have coverage for a comprehensive set of preventive health services without any out-of-pocket costs. These sweeping new rules represent an unacceptable and unjustified attack on a basic health care service on which millions of women across the country rely.\nThe full text of the letter is enclosed below: \nDear Acting Secretary Hargan, Secretary Acosta, and Secretary Mnuchin:\nWe write to share our comments on the Interim Final Rules (IFRs) regarding coverage of certain preventive services for women.\nAs the Ranking Members of the Committees of jurisdiction, we are gravely concerned that the IFRs will undo the progress made by the Affordable Care Act (ACA), which ensures that women have coverage for a comprehensive set of preventive health services without any out-of-pocket costs. These sweeping new rules represent an unacceptable and unjustified attack on a basic health care service on which millions of women across the country rely.\nBefore the ACA\u2019s enactment, basic preventive services were often not fully covered by most insurance plans.\u00a0 Women in particular struggled to access needed preventive services and were more likely than men to forego preventive care due to costs.\u00a0 Recognizing this inequity, the ACA guaranteed that women have access to all necessary \u201cpreventive care and screenings,\u201d including the full range of Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved contraceptive methods, without copayments or any other any cost sharing requirements.\nThe women\u2019s preventive services guarantee was a dramatic step forward for women\u2019s health. As a result, more than 62 million women now have coverage for contraception and other preventive services, without having to pay a deductible, co-payment, or coinsurance.\u00a0 Some women now have coverage for contraception for the first time, and women are increasingly likely to choose long-acting, more effective methods of birth control that may have prohibitively higher upfront costs without coverage.\u00a0 The importance of coverage for contraception in narrowing the coverage gap for women has been repeatedly affirmed, including when these preventive services were first identified by the Institute of Medicine (IOM), and most recently in December 2016 by the Women\u2019s Preventive Services Initiative. The recommendations of each of these expert panels were adopted by the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) within the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).\u00a0\nContraceptive coverage is essential for women to not only avoid unintended pregnancy and space pregnancies effectively for optimal birth outcomes and maternal health, but also as a critical preventive health tool that should be treated like any other preventive health service. Women have a fundamental right to determine the number, timing, and spacing of their pregnancies. Contraceptive coverage and access is essential to women\u2019s equality and treating this care differently from other preventive services is unjustified and discriminatory.\nWe are dismayed that the administration is now attempting to roll back the advances made to women\u2019s health under the guise of religious liberty by providing broad exemptions for employers or institutions of higher learning that claim to have a religious or moral objection. The IFRs state that the Departments are seeking to issue these rules \u201cto better balance the Government's interest in ensuring coverage for contraceptive and sterilization services in relation to the Government\u2019s interests\u2026to provide conscience protections for individuals and entities with sincerely held religious beliefs in certain health care contexts.\u201d\u00a0 However, there is no doubt that the IFRs are dramatically imbalanced in their approach, by giving employers and institutions of higher education carte blanche to use their religious or moral beliefs to deny fundamental health services to women.\nIn creating these sweeping exemptions that block contraceptive coverage for women and discriminate against them, the IFRs violate a number of constitutional and statutory provisions, including the Administrative Procedure Act, the Establishment Clause as well as the equal protection and due process guarantees of the U.S. Constitution, and the nondiscrimination provision of the ACA (Section 1557).\u00a0\nThe Establishment Clause of the First Amendment limits the government\u2019s ability to create an exemption from generally applicable laws for religious or moral beliefs. The constitutional requirement is straightforward: \u201can accommodation must be measured so that it does not override other significant interests,\u201d\u00a0 \u201cimpose unjustified burdens on other[s],\u201d or have a \u201cdetrimental effect on any third party.\u201d\u00a0 The exemptions in the IFRs clearly impose burdens on others: it compels employees and students who need coverage for contraceptives to pay the substantial costs themselves (if they are able) or else to forego that essential health care altogether.\nThe IFR that specifically contains an exemption for moral beliefs does not change this Establishment Clause analysis. It is clear from the IFRs that the moral exemption is effectively just a religious exemption by another name. According to the moral exemption IFR, the scope of the exemption for moral convictions is based on Welsh v. United States.\u00a0 In Welsh,\u00a0 the Supreme Court held that a religious exemption must be provided equally to those who hold moral beliefs that are akin to religious beliefs. Again, the Constitution does not permit exemptions for religious or moral beliefs that result in discrimination or harm to others. Therefore, both IFRs fail the constitutional do-no-harm test.\u00a0\nFurther, the Departments\u2019 invocation of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) in defense of the IFRs is misguided. Under RFRA, Congress required that government action may only substantially burden a person\u2019s exercise of religion if it is in the furtherance of a compelling government interest, and is the least restrictive means to achieve that interest.\u00a0 It is clear that the government indeed has a compelling interest in ensuring that patients have unencumbered access to the health care they need and that women are not discriminated against in health care by being forced to pay more than men. Indeed, in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc., five Supreme Court justices found that the government has this compelling interest.\u00a0 As Justice Kennedy made clear in his concurring opinion, requiring health plans to provide contraceptive coverage \u201cserves the Government\u2019s compelling interest in providing insurance coverage that is necessary to protect the health of female employees, coverage that is significantly costlier than for a male employee.\u201d\u00a0 However, the IFRs would shift this cost back to women by allowing virtually any employer, along with institutions of higher education, to claim a religious or moral objection to providing contraceptive coverage.\nRFRA was never intended to allow religion to supersede rights or legal obligations; RFRA was intended to provide heightened\u2014but not unlimited\u2014protection for religious exercise. The misapplication of RFRA improperly dilutes its original, solemn purpose to protect sincerely-held religious beliefs and opens the door to further erosion of civil rights, under the guise of religious freedom.\nAdditionally, we remind the Departments that most recently in Zubik v. Burwell, the Supreme Court explicitly instructed the federal government and the parties to the case to find a solution that would ensure women have access to seamless contraceptive coverage.\u00a0 Not only do the IFRs fail to do this, they completely run afoul of the Court\u2019s instructed approach that would \u201censur[e] that women covered by petitioners\u2019 health plans \u2018receive full and equal health coverage, including contraceptive coverage.\u2019\u201d\nFinally, and perhaps most importantly, as Members of Congress who served during the passage of the ACA, we can provide clarity on the Congressional intent behind the preventive services requirement. While the IFRs list other statutes that include a religious or moral exemption, we note that Congress did not include such an exemption in the ACA.\u00a0 In fact, the inclusion of the women\u2019s preventive services provision, often referred to as the Women\u2019s Health Amendment, signals that Congress considered coverage for the preventive health services unique to women as paramount. In crafting the ACA, a core tenant was the belief that access to comprehensive care, including preventive care services and essential health benefits, would improve the lives and health of the American people. Proponents of the ACA recognized that expanding access to preventive care could result in lower costs and better health outcomes. Contraception coverage was then, and continues to be, a critical aspect of this overarching goal. Eviscerating this guarantee by giving employers and institutions of higher education carte blanche to opt out is contrary to the intent of Congress.\nIt is our responsibility to uphold the delicate balance between freedom of religion and civil rights. The IFRs as published do not accomplish this goal, and we urge the administration to rescind these harmful rules.\nSincerely,\nBobby Scott (VA-03), Ranking Member, House Committee on Education and the Workforce\nRichard Neal (MA-01), Ranking Member, House Committee on Ways and Means\nFrank Pallone Jr. (NJ-06), Ranking Member, House Committee on Energy and Commerce\n\u00a0\n###", 1, "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z", "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://bobbyscott.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/top-democrats-urge-departments-to-rescind-harmful-actions-taking-away"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 0.7064240053296089, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}