Notre Dame employees will retain access to free birth control

SOUTH BEND — University of Notre Dame employees received an email Tuesday morning saying contraceptives coverage will continue to be provided to health care plan members at no cost.

"Meritain Health/OptumRx have advised that they will now continue to provide contraceptives to plan members at no charge," Notre Dame's human resources office said in the email.

The announcement came as a surprising development for faculty and staff, who last week had been notified that a separate medical plan which provided contraceptive coverage would end Dec. 31. After that, employees who sought contraceptives for reasons other than medical conditions would have to pay for them on their own.

That change announced last week was prompted by the Trump administration's decision to roll back a requirement under the Affordable Care Act that employers must include birth control coverage in their health insurance plans.

Notre Dame has attracted national news attention recently as one of the first employers to drop contraceptive coverage following the Trump administration's decision. Some of the coverage and social media posts about the decision have been highly critical of the university.

It's unclear what prompted the change announced Tuesday.

Notre Dame spokesman Paul Browne issued the following email statement: "After the US Health and Human Services announcement on Oct. 6, we believed that insurance companies would discontinue no cost coverage for contraceptives for employees at the end of the year. Since then, we have been informed that Meritain Health/OptumRx will continue such coverage indefinitely. Notre Dame, as a Catholic institution, follows Catholic teaching about the use of contraceptives and engaged in the recent lawsuit to protect its freedom to act in accord with its principles. Recognizing, however, the plurality of religious and other convictions among its employees, it will not interfere with the provision of contraceptives that will be administered and funded independently of the University."

It's not clear if there's a way for a third-party administrator to be reimbursed by the government for providing no-fee contraception unless the employer has agreed to the federal "accommodation," said Dania Palanker, an assistant research professor at the Center on Health Insurance Reform at Georgetown University.

Notre Dame met the accommodation requirement several years ago when it submitted a waiver stating its religious objection to the birth-control coverage requirement, triggering the third-party services. A newly signed waiver is not needed, the professor said.

"If Aetna and Notre Dame aren't going to tell exactly what happened, we're not going to know exactly who decided to keep coverage," Palanker said.

In recent years, university employees have had access to no-cost contraceptives and contraceptive services through a third party and funded by the federal government, which allowed Notre Dame to maintain its religious opposition to the contraceptive mandate of the Affordable Care Act.

The services have been managed and provided by third-party administrator Meritain Health and prescription benefit manager OptumRX.

For more information, employees are being told to contact Meritain Health, which is part of Aetna.

Aetna didn't respond Tuesday to a South Bend Tribune request for more information about the decision and what prompted it.

It appears a similar provision will be made for students. Many Notre Dame graduate students and some undergraduates have insurance through the university. In their case, Aetna Student Health has been providing birth-control at no charge, separate from university coverage, but students also were notified recently the free coverage would end, effective next August.

Those students received an email update Tuesday afternoon from Sharon McMullen, director of University Health Services, telling them Aetna Student Health intends to follow the same course as Meritain and continue to provide cost-free contraceptive coverage.

Although, the email noted, "given that student health plans operate on an academic year cycle, plan changes are not finalized until late spring."

Some graduate students expressed relief Tuesday in social media posts after they received the email.

Palanker, the Georgetown professor, cautioned the situation could change again down the road. "More employers and institutions may choose to drop coverage. We're really at the beginning of this," she said.

Two national advocacy groups filed a federal lawsuit Oct. 31 challenging the Trump administration rule change. The suit was filed on behalf of five women who say they will be denied birth control coverage, including three Notre Dame students.

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