Several groups who have been fighting Obamacare’s birth control mandate are cheering President-elect Trump’s choice to lead the Department of Health and Human Services.
Repealing Obamacare is a top priority for Trump and the Republican-controlled Congress, but some groups think Price will start to dismantle the birth control mandate even before then. The mandate, which requires employers to fully cover birth control, sparked a major lawsuit from religious nonprofits such as universities and charities that fought the Obama administration over whether they could be exempted.
That lawsuit, Little Sisters of the Poor v. Burwell, went to the Supreme Court. A shorthanded court sent the lawsuit back to the lower courts with directions for the various groups, which included the Little Sisters of the Poor charity, to reach settlements with the federal government.
But now groups are hoping that an HHS under Price, who is a doctor, will not enforce the mandate.
“We are confident that Rep. Price will finally put an end to the anti-religious-liberty HHS mandate,” said Ashley McGuire, a senior fellow with the Catholic Association, a religious liberty advocacy group.
Other groups hope that Price will start dismantling Obamacare before a repeal bill reaches Trump.
“There are tens of thousands of pages of Obamacare regulations that can be rescinded, amended or left unenforced on the way to repeal, and we encourage him to make every effort to begin shutting down Obamacare by shutting down its regulations,” said Twila Brase, the president of the Citizens’ Council for Health Freedom.
