Today, the Departments of Health and Human Services (HHS), Labor, and the Treasury issued an Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking outlining draft proposals to implement the policy announced by President Barack Obama and HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius on Feb. 10, 2012 which ensures women's access to recommended preventive services while respecting religious liberties. This policy will provide women with access to recommended preventive services including contraceptives without cost sharing, while ensuring that non-profit religious organizations are not forced to pay for, provide, or facilitate the provision of any contraceptive service they object to on religious grounds. Click here for the HHS news release.

On Friday, President Obama announced that the administration would compromise on the preventive services final rule. The final rule, an update to the interim final rule released in August, would have required religiously affiliated entities to cover contraceptive care without any cost-sharing requirements. The new final rules mandate that nonprofit organizations affiliated with religious institutions that do not cover contraception based on their beliefs will not have to include it in their coverage. However, health insurers that provide the policies used by those nonprofit religious affiliates, which include educational institutions, hospitals, and charities, are required to offer separate insurance policy “riders” that cover contraceptive care at no additional cost. The announcement came after many Catholic organizations and Republicans had strongly objected to the original final rule that the Department of Health and Human Services had announced on January 20th.

US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced today that religious non-profit employers who do not currently offer contraceptive coverage to their employees will have an additional year to comply with the preventive services requirement set forth in an earlier Interim Final Rule (IFR). The earlier rule requires, that as of August 1, 2012, all employers except for churches must include contraception among the free preventive services covered in the insurance plans they offer to employees. The new announcement allows those employers who have religious objections an additional year to comply with the requirement. For more information on preventive services, click here.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has issued a pre-rule informational Bulletin which lays out its proposed approach for determining the Essential Benefits package required of all qualified health plans (QHPs) under the Affordable Care Act (ACA). HHS deferred to States' judgment by allowing a State to create a benchmark essential benefits package from a currently-available plan within the State, as long as the package includes benefits from the ten benefit categories laid out in the ACA. HHS proposes that States choose the benchmark plan from a list of plan types:

• One of the three largest small group plans in the State by enrollment
• One of the three largest State employee health plans by enrollment
• One of the three largest federal employee health plan options by enrollment
• The largest HMO plan offered in the State’s commercial market by enrollment

If a State does not select a benchmark plan, HHS intends to propose that the default benchmark be the benefits package from the largest small group plan within the State. For more information on Essential Benefits, click here.