College Cancels Health Insurance to Avoid Covering Birth Control

https://www.yahoo.com/parenting/college-cancels-health-insurance-to-avoid-covering-125757097942.html

Wheaton College in suburban Chicago will stop offering health insurance plans to students beginning Friday in an effort to avoid providing birth control coverage mandated by the Affordable Care Act.

On July 10, the Christian liberal arts college announced to the campus community that it will no longer provide health coverage for roughly a quarter of its 3,000 undergraduate and graduate students. The decision won’t affect health care insurance for the school’s faculty and staff.

Student development vice president Paul Chelsen told Wheaton students last week during an information session that the school will provide hardship funding for some students losing insurance. He said the school is trying to protect a lawsuit it has against the Department of Health and Human Services.

“What has brought us here is about student health insurance, but it’s bigger than student health insurance,” Chelsen said. “What really breaks my heart is that there are real people that are affected by our decision. But if we don’t win this case, the implications down the road in terms of what the government will tell us what we can and cannot do will be potentially more significant....