Power

Post-Election, Illinois Plans a Contraception Coverage Offensive

Illinois on Tuesday elected a Republican to be its next governor while voters supported a mandate on contraception coverage in employer health insurance plans, a direct response to the Supreme Court’s controversial Hobby Lobby ruling this summer.

Illinois on Tuesday elected a Republican to be its next governor while voters supported a mandate on contraception coverage in employer health insurance plans, a direct response to the Supreme Court’s controversial Hobby Lobby ruling this summer. Shutterstock

Illinois on Tuesday elected a Republican to be its next governor while voters supported a mandate on contraception coverage in employer health insurance plans, a direct response to the Supreme Court’s controversial Hobby Lobby ruling this summer.

Sixty-six percent of Illinois residents on Election Day responded “yes” to a referendum asking: “Shall any health insurance plan in Illinois that provides prescription drug coverage be required to include prescription birth control as part of that coverage?”

Voters’ support of contraception coverage was one of many Election Day wins for progressive measures, as states across the country passed amendments that included minimum wage increases, criminal justice reform, and marijuana legalization.

The referendum was only a “public question,” meaning it’s essentially a straw poll gauging voter opinion and won’t bind the legislature to any further action. Critics of the referendum said that it was just a Democratic Party tactic to get liberals to the polls.

But backers of the referendum say they’ll use it to show support for the Protection of Reproductive Health Care Decisions Act, a bill introduced in September that seeks to protect access to contraceptives in the wake of Hobby Lobby, a case in which religious conservatives fought the Affordable Care Act’s contraception benefit. Contraception coverage opponents claim—against all evidence—that contraception is akin to abortion, which they vehemently oppose.

“Only the Congress can undo Hobby Lobby,” said Terry Cosgrove, president and CEO of Personal PAC, an organization that backed both the birth control referendum and will be pushing for the passage of the Decisions Act. “But what this bill does is put employers who are invoking the Hobby Lobby edict in a funny position.”

The bill does that in a few ways. First, it requires that employers that decide to exclude contraceptive coverage from their health plans give advanced notice to all employees about the change—a check on employers that other states and the federal government have also implemented post-Hobby Lobby—and that employers post the notice “in conspicuous places on the premises” so that everyone can see they don’t cover contraception.

The Illinois bill would also make it a civil rights violation for an employer to discriminate against an employee on the basis of that person’s reproductive health-care decisions, including contraceptive use and abortion experience.

Refusing to offer contraceptives as part of a company-sponsored health insurance plan is itself discrimination, but not the kind that can be resolved immediately on the state level, Cosgrove said. What states can do, however, and what Illinois progressives hope to do with this bill, is stigmatize companies that don’t cover contraceptives.

“[Employers] are going to discriminate, so we are going to make it as hard as possible for them to do that,” Cosgrove told Rewire. “They’re going to have to tell the whole world that you discriminate against women. There should be a cost to people acting in a bigoted and sexist manner.”

Cosgrove doesn’t expect there to be a significant amount of push back from the Illinois the majority-Democratic legislature. And though Illinois’ new governor, Bruce Rauner, is a Republican, Rauner has already distanced himself from the national Republican stance on contraceptives, saying during his campaign that he is in favor of mandating birth control coverage in employer-sponsored plans.

If there is push back, advocates of the bill can point to the public question referendum.

“We felt very strongly that having it on the ballot was a great educational tool,” Cosgrove told Rewire. “It sent a clear message to the general assembly that the people of Illinois demand that prescription birth control be covered in employer health insurance plans, and that an overwhelming majority want women to have access to birth control.”