Fearing an election-year backlash, President Obama on Friday retreated from a three-week-old policy mandating that all employers, including those with religious affiliations, offer free birth control under their employee health plans, senior administration officials said.
Obama will require insurance companies to cover the costs of birth control for employees of religiously affiliated organizations, including hospitals and schools, officials said. The new mandate represents a shift from the policy that Obama announced Jan. 20.
The original policy invited fierce backlash from religious leaders, especially in the Catholic community, who argued that the requirement infringed on their religious beliefs.
With Republican lawmakers trying to turn the issue against Obama, the president was forced to retreat from his original policy.
Obama plans to announce the policy change at 12:15 p.m. Friday in the White House briefing room.
The new plan will also require that insurance companies do not pass the cost of offering free birth control onto employers.
The administration has the power to enforce that requirement because pregnancies are more expensive than birth control, senior administration officials said.
“We don’t think there is an extra premium associated with this coverage,” one official said. “We think this is a very common sense solution.”
