What You Need to Know

Under the preventive care package of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), millions of people are able to access birth control for free.

In 2015, the Obama administration issued guidance specifying that insurers cannot limit coverage for transgender people based on their gender identity or the sex assigned to them at birth. Additionally, health insurance plans have been required to cover FDA-approved contraceptives without co-pays or deductibles since 2012. However, there are exceptions:

Some older insurance plans are considered “grandfathered” and are not required to provide free birth control unless they lose this status. As of 2019, 87% of workers with employer-sponsored insurance were enrolled in plans that must provide free preventive services. For religious reasons, churches and other houses of worship are also exempt from having to provide birth control coverage to employees or their dependents. In 2020, the Supreme Court upheld broad exemptions for both non-profit and for-profit companies to opt out of birth control coverage on religious or moral grounds. Religiously affiliated colleges and universities can also refuse to cover birth control for students on the school-provided insurance plan.

As of June 2024, eight states had enacted or proposed attacks on contraceptive access. These attacks target people with lower income, young people, immigrants and people who live in rural areas with limited access to health care. For example, in Indiana, a law passed limiting Medicaid recipients’ postpartum contraceptive options to subdermal implants, excluding IUDs. The law was amended based on false claims and misinformation by anti-abortion groups that IUDs cause abortions.