Religious universities will be required to offer insurance plans that cover contraception, according to the White House:
Filling in a key missing piece in the battle over religious institutions and insurance coverage for birth control, the Obama administration announced late Friday that most colleges’ student health plans will have to include contraceptive coverage at no cost.
The rules will apply to religious and secular colleges alike, although religious institutions have an additional year to comply with the new regulations. The administration’s final rule on student health plans, which will be published this week in the Federal Register, left one loophole: colleges that offer self-insured student health plans, rather than purchasing plans from an insurer to offer to students, will not be required to cover contraception. …
The rules announced Friday extend the same compromise to religious colleges’ student health plans: the insurer, not the college, will pay for the coverage, but it must be included in all policies. Still, the requirement that students’ birth control be covered is likely to provoke an outcry among colleges that prohibit or discourage premarital sex on moral grounds.
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