A lawsuit winding its way through the courts could undermine the power of federal agencies to mandate the services health insurance providers must cover. And that could threaten access to free birth control for . Health Brief is a coproduction of The Washington Post and KFF Health News.
The case is called , and it was brought by plaintiffs looking to strike down Obamacare’s requirements that private insurers cover certain kinds of preventive care without cost sharing. (Think everything from no-cost cancer screenings to free IUDs.) Studies have shown the have increased consumers’ use of .
Without those nationwide standards, the United States would return to a “wild West” dynamic “in which insurers and employers pick and choose which services they want to cover or which services they want to charge for,” said , a health policy researcher at . The plaintiffs, a group of individuals and Christian-owned businesses, argue the three groups that set coverage standards — including an independent advisory panel to the — haven’t been properly appointed by Congress. In June, the U.
S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit issued a self-described . It agreed that one body hadn’t been properly appointed, making its recommendations since the Affordable Care Act became law unconstitutional.
But the court said only the plaintiffs get to ignore its standards. The appeals court sent questions about the other two groups — including the advisory panel to HRSA that makes recomm.