Carson City, NV – Attorney General Aaron D. Ford has announced that the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals has vacated a lower court judgment, finding that Nevada should have been allowed to intervene to defend the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) requirement that employer-provided health insurance include birth control coverage. The decision was handed down on Dec.17.

The class action lawsuit, filed in Texas, sought to roll back this ACA requirement. Because the Trump Administration refused to defend the ACA’s preventive care provisions in the suit, the Office of the Attorney General filed to intervene in May 2019 to protect access to birth control coverage. Under Nevada state law, employers cannot dictate what health care their employees can and cannot receive.

“Nearly 400,000 Nevadans who receive private insurance coverage could be affected by this judgment,” said AG Ford. “Our office has successfully stepped in to defend the interests of our state and our citizens before the courts. I’m proud to have successfully led this effort to protect our citizens’ access to health care.”

Since the Affordable Care Act was enacted in 2010, most employers who provide health insurance coverage to their employees have been required to include coverage for contraception, at no cost to the employee. As a result of this Act, more than 55 million women in the United States have access to a range of Federal Drug Administration-approved methods of birth control with no out-of-pocket costs.

The matter was handled by Deputy Solicitor General Craig Newby. The published decision is attached. 

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