APA Speaks Out Against Trump Administration ’s Efforts to Undercut Women’s Preventive Care

APA joined four other medical specialty organizations on Thursday to urge the Trump administration to reverse actions taken this week that will limit women ’s access to contraception.The organizationsspoke out just one day after the Trump administration issued a pair of federal rules that allow some employers to opt out of a requirement under the Affordable Care Act to provide birth control coverage for their employees. The new rules allow some employers to deny coverage on religious or moral grounds.“By undercutting women’s access to contraception, a key preventive service, at no out-of-pocket cost in private insurance plans, the final rules conflict with our firmly held belief that no woman should lose the coverage she has today,” they said.The other four organizations that joined with APA were the American Academy of Family Physicians, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, and the American College of Physicians.“These rules create a dangerous new standard for employers to deny their employees coverage based on their own moral objections. This interferes in the personal health care decisions of our patients and inappropriately inserts a patient’s employer into the patient-physician relationship,” they cautioned. Additionally, the rules also “open the door to moral exemptions for other essential physician-recommended preventive services, such as immunizations.”The groups also warned of the harmful effec...
Source: Psychiatr News - Category: Psychiatry Tags: Affordable Care Act APA contraception moral objections preventive service religious objections Trump administration Source Type: research