New twist on birth control coverage

WASHINGTON -- The Obama administration signaled Friday it's willing to help insurance companies offset the cost of providing free birth control to women working at church-affiliated institutions such as hospitals and colleges.

A 32-page proposal unveiled Friday offered options for providing free birth control to women whose employers object to contraception on religious grounds. The government now classifies birth control as preventive care, and the health care law requires health plans to cover prevention at no cost to the consumer.

Churches, synagogues, mosques and other institutions whose primary purpose is to propagate faith are exempt. But when the administration sought to impose the requirement on religious nonprofits serving the public, it triggered a backlash. That forced President Barack Obama to offer a compromise: insurers, not the religious employers would bear the responsibility.

Administration officials are seeking public comment for 90 days.

"Our general principle is that we want to maintain the posture that a religious organization that objects to paying for contraception, won't," said an official who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The idea is to use the levers of government policy to reimburse the insurance companies, for example, by providing them credits against fees they would have to pay under another provision of the health care law.

Women's groups were generally supportive of the administration's latest move, although it seemed unlikely to please religious conservatives. Catholic bishops have taken a forceful stand opposing the birth control requirement as an affront to religious freedom.

Sister Mary Ann Walsh, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, said church leaders will begin studying the proposal immediately, "but now is too soon to know what it actually says."