One in 10 Larger Nonprofits Have Sought an 'Accommodation' to the ACA Contraceptive Coverage Rule, Analysis Finds

As the U.S. Supreme Court gears up to hear a new round of legal challenges to the ACA’s contraceptive coverage requirement, a new Kaiser Family Foundation data note finds 10 percent of nonprofits with more than 1,000 employees have requested an "accommodation" to the health law's birth control requirement.

Overall, 3 percent of nonprofits with 10 or more employees reported they have sought an accommodation, according to the analysis, which draws from responses to the Kaiser/Health Research & Educational Trust (Kaiser/HRET) 2015 Annual Employer Health Benefits Survey.

The accommodation is provided by the federal government to religiously-affiliated nonprofits that oppose contraception on religious grounds but are not houses of worship. It is designed to ensure women employees and dependents have full contraceptive coverage without cost-sharing, as required by the health law, while releasing nonprofit religiously-affiliated employers that oppose birth control from the requirement of paying for contraceptive coverage.

Many of the nonprofits who have sought the accommodation are likely health systems or educational institutions affiliated with the Catholic Church, which objects to birth control, the analysis notes.

The Supreme Court will issue its decision on the cases brought by nonprofits claiming the accommodation is insufficient by the end of June 2016.

For more information on the cases, go to Round 2 on the Legal Challenges to Contraceptive Coverage: Are Nonprofits “Substantially Burdened” by the “Accommodation”?

The full Kaiser/Health Research & Educational Trust (Kaiser/HRET) 2015 Annual Employer Health Benefits Survey can be found on kff.org.

Filling the need for trusted information on national health issues, the Kaiser Family Foundation is a nonprofit organization based in Menlo Park, California.