Findings

Congress finds the following: (1)Deeply embedded in the history and traditions of the United States is the protection of religious freedom. The First Amendment of the United States Constitution states Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, and thus, it gives general protection for individuals’ religious beliefs and practices. (2)Repeatedly during the existence of the United States, Congress has reaffirmed the freedom of religion by enacting, among other things, title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Church amendment, the Weldon amendment, section 245 of the Public Health Service Act, and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993. Through their passage, the United States has augmented religious freedoms and set the precedent of protection of conscience rights. (3)The Weldon amendment has been regularly included in appropriations legislation for the Department of Health and Human Services. The Weldon amendment prohibits Federal agencies, States, and local governments that receive the appropriated funds in the respective Act from discriminating among institutional or individual health care professionals, organizations, facilities, and plans on the basis of a health care entity’s refusal to provide, pay for, provide coverage of, or refer for abortions. (4)The United States has a history of protecting individuals, organizations, facilities, and plans from being penalized or discriminated against due to their religious beliefs and moral values. Until the enactment of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (Public Law 111–148), the Federal Government has never sought to impose specific health care coverage or care requirements that infringe on the conscience rights of insurers, purchasers of insurance, plan sponsors, beneficiaries, and other stakeholders, such as individual or institutional health care entities. (5)The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act grants the Department of Health and Human Services the authority to provide a list of detailed services to be included as essential health benefits (as defined in section 1302(a) of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act), and preventive health services described in section 2713 of the Public Health Service Act. These services represent a new nationwide coverage requirement for health plans. (6)The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act provides a narrow exemption for religious groups that object to participation in government health programs generally, but it does not allow purchasers, plan sponsors, and other stakeholders with religious or moral objections to specific required items or services to decline providing or obtaining coverage of such items or services, or allow health care entities with such objections to decline to provide them. (7)By creating new barriers to health insurance and causing the loss of existing insurance arrangements, these inflexible mandates in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act jeopardize the ability of individuals to exercise their rights of conscience and their ability to freely participate in the health insurance and health care marketplace. (8)In a significant move from the current free insurance coverage market, the Department of Health and Human Services issued an interim rule on August 1, 2011, requiring individual and group health plans to cover free sterilization and all contraceptives approved by the Food and Drug Administration. (9)Within the list of contraceptives approved by the Food and Drug Administration are drugs containing abortifacient substances and effects, including Levonorgestral commonly known as Plan B and ulipristal acetate marketed as Ella. Thus, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act effectively mandates employers to provide health care insurance covering abortion drugs and services, which is a violation of numerous Federal provisions aforementioned. (10)On January 20, 2012, the Department of Health and Human Services announced that it would not broaden the religious exemption it included in its August 1, 2011, interim rule. Instead, it gave institutions and employers with religious and moral objections to including free sterilization and all contraceptives approved by the Food and Drug Administration in their offered health insurance plan an additional year to adapt their consciences to the mandate.

Protecting rights of conscience

(1)

Prohibition on implementation of certain rules

Notwithstanding any other provision of law, the Secretary of Health and Human Services shall not implement or enforce any provision of the interim final rule published on July 19, 2010 (75 Federal Register 41726) or any amendment to such rule, including the amendment published on August 3, 2011 (76 Federal Register 46621), insofar as such provision or amendment relates to requiring any individual or entity to provide coverage of sterilization or contraceptive services to which the individual or entity is opposed on the basis of religious belief. (2)

Clarification on application to PPACA requirements

Section 1302(b) of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (Public Law 111–148; 42 U.S.C. 18022(b)) is amended by adding at the end the following new paragraph:

(6)

Special rule

A health plan shall not be considered to have failed to provide the essential health benefits package described in subsection (a) (or preventive health services described in section 2713 of the Public Health Service Act), to fail to be a qualified health plan, or to fail to fulfill any other requirement under this title on the basis that the plan does not provide (or pay for) coverage of sterilization or contraceptive services because— (A)providing (or paying for) such coverage is contrary to the religious or moral beliefs of the sponsor, issuer, or other entity offering the plan; or (B)such coverage, in the case of individual coverage, is contrary to the religious or moral beliefs of the purchaser or beneficiary of the coverage.