The Trump administration is apparently preparing to overhaul Obamacare’s birth control mandate, purportedly allowing any employer to seek a moral or religious exemption from the requirement, according to a draft regulation obtained by Vox. The ACA requires nearly all employers to offer health insurance that covers access to a wide array of contraceptive methods—a mandate that has faced numerous court challenges. The draft proposal, if finalized, would significantly broaden the type of companies and organizations that can request an exemption.
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Congress can and should still move forward with important health care reforms to ease the burden on millions of American businesses and workers. The National Restaurant Association and the one million foodservice locations they represent have urged elected officials to make a few basic changes to relieve the burdens on businesses that are stifling growth and impacting their ability to hire new employees. Regardless of the Republican bill’s passage, legislative and regulatory constraints imposed by the ACA continue to negatively impact restaurants.
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The CBO has refused to adjust its computations to the ever-more-apparent failings of the Affordable Care Act. When the CBO says that 23 million fewer people will have insurance coverage under the AHCA than under the ACA—a statistic that politics have converted into a mantra—that figure is predicated on fictional ACA participation. The CBO assumes 18 million people will be enrolled in ACA exchanges in 2018 and that enrollment will continue to grow until 2026. No one on any side of the political spectrum believes this to be true.
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