Congressional Democrats pressured the nation’s largest health insurers Thursday to cover preventive services such as mammograms, lung and skin cancer screenings and HIV prophylaxis drugs at no cost to patients while the Biden administration appeals a decision that struck down a key part of Obamacare.
Five House and Senate committee leaders warned a dozen insurers that the case is of “dubious legal merit” and that any attempt to impose out-of-pocket costs on patients would spark confusion.
“While this case undergoes further judicial review, it is firmly within the control of your plans to save lives and continue zero cost-sharing for preventive services,” they wrote.
The Biden administration on Thursday said it was seeking a stay of the ruling in Braidwood v. Becerra last month.
U.S. District Court Judge Reed O’Connor, presiding in Fort Worth, Texas, blocked an Obamacare mandate requiring coverage of pre-exposure prophylaxis against HIV, or PrEP drugs, saying it violated religious freedom. He also said the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, which recommends services that must be covered without cost-sharing, was unconstitutional because it’s comprised of volunteer experts and not government employees.
Democrats are worried Americans will forego services, including mental health screenings and medicine that prevents cardiovascular disease, because they will think they have to reach into their pocket for care.
“Millions of Americans have benefited from increased access to zero-cost preventive services. Families cannot afford to lose access to this critical consumer protection,” the Democrats wrote to insurers such as Cigna, Humana and the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association.
House Energy and Commerce Committee ranking member Frank Pallone, House Ways and Means Committee ranking member Richard E. Neal, House Education and the Workforce Committee ranking member Robert C. Scott, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden and Senate Health Committee Chairman Bernard Sanders signed the letters, which demand answers by Wednesday.
The letters amount to a plea for insurers to sit tight while an appeal of the O’Connor ruling works its way through the courts. It is a parallel fight to the legal war over a separate ruling out of Texas that invalidated the regulatory approval of a key abortion drug.
The administration wants the courts to hit pause on both rulings while the appellate courts take a second look.
“President Biden, and this entire administration, will do everything possible to protect and defend Americans’ right to the health care they need and deserve,” Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra said Thursday.
The Obamacare case was brought by Texas businesses and individuals, including Christians who oppose covering HIV drugs, contraception, the HPV vaccine and the screenings and behavioral counseling for sexually transmitted diseases and drug use.
They said the coverage would be “making them complicit in facilitating homosexual behavior, drug use and sexual activity outside of marriage between one man and one woman,” court documents said.
If the ruling stands on appeal, it would not dismantle the 2010 health law, but “it would limit a very popular benefit that tens of millions of people use,” Larry Levitt, executive vice president for health policy at the Kaiser Family Foundation, said last month.
