December 20, 2021
Carson City, NV – Attorney General Aaron D. Ford has announced that the
Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals has vacated a lower court judgment, finding that
Nevada should have been allowed to intervene to defend the Affordable Care
Act’s (ACA) requirement that employer-provided health insurance include birth
control coverage. The decision was handed down on Dec.17.
The class action lawsuit, filed in Texas, sought to roll back
this ACA requirement. Because the Trump Administration refused to defend the
ACA’s preventive care provisions in the suit, the Office of the Attorney
General filed to intervene in May 2019 to protect access to birth control
coverage. Under Nevada state law, employers cannot dictate what health care
their employees can and cannot receive.
“Nearly 400,000 Nevadans who receive private insurance coverage
could be affected by this judgment,” said
AG Ford. “Our office has successfully stepped in to defend the interests of
our state and our citizens before the courts. I’m proud to have successfully
led this effort to protect our citizens’ access to health care.”
Since the Affordable Care Act was enacted in 2010, most
employers who provide health insurance coverage to their employees have been
required to include coverage for contraception, at no cost to the employee. As
a result of this Act, more than 55 million women in the United States have
access to a range of Federal Drug Administration-approved methods of birth
control with no out-of-pocket costs.
The matter was
handled by Deputy Solicitor General Craig Newby. The
published decision is attached.
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