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[Congressional Bills 112th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.R. 3982 Introduced in House (IH)]

112th CONGRESS
  2d Session
                                H. R. 3982

      To prohibit the Secretary of Health and Human Services from 
implementing certain rules relating to the health insurance coverage of 
    sterilization and contraceptives approved by the Food and Drug 
                            Administration.

_______________________________________________________________________

                    IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                            February 8, 2012

 Mr. Luetkemeyer introduced the following bill; which was referred to 
                  the Committee on Energy and Commerce

_______________________________________________________________________

                                 A BILL

 
      To prohibit the Secretary of Health and Human Services from 
implementing certain rules relating to the health insurance coverage of 
    sterilization and contraceptives approved by the Food and Drug 
                            Administration.

    Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

    This Act may be cited as the ``Religious Liberty Protection Act of 
2012''.

SEC. 2. FINDINGS.

    Congress finds the following:
            (1) Deeply embedded in the history and traditions of the 
        United States is the protection of religious freedom. The First 
        Amendment of the United States Constitution states ``Congress 
        shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or 
        prohibiting the free exercise thereof'', and thus, it gives 
        general protection for individuals' religious beliefs and 
        practices.
            (2) Repeatedly during the existence of the United States, 
        Congress has reaffirmed the freedom of religion by enacting, 
        among other things, title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 
        the Church amendment, the Weldon amendment, section 245 of the 
        Public Health Service Act, and the Religious Freedom 
        Restoration Act of 1993. Through their passage, the United 
        States has augmented religious freedoms and set the precedent 
        of protection of conscience rights.
            (3) The Weldon amendment has been regularly included in 
        appropriations legislation for the Department of Health and 
        Human Services. The Weldon amendment prohibits Federal 
        agencies, States, and local governments that receive the 
        appropriated funds in the respective Act from discriminating 
        among institutional or individual health care professionals, 
        organizations, facilities, and plans on the basis of a health 
        care entity's refusal to provide, pay for, provide coverage of, 
        or refer for abortions.
            (4) The United States has a history of protecting 
        individuals, organizations, facilities, and plans from being 
        penalized or discriminated against due to their religious 
        beliefs and moral values. Until the enactment of the Patient 
        Protection and Affordable Care Act (Public Law 111-148), the 
        Federal Government has never sought to impose specific health 
        care coverage or care requirements that infringe on the 
        conscience rights of insurers, purchasers of insurance, plan 
        sponsors, beneficiaries, and other stakeholders, such as 
        individual or institutional health care entities.
            (5) The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act grants 
        the Department of Health and Human Services the authority to 
        provide a list of detailed services to be included as essential 
        health benefits (as defined in section 1302(a) of the Patient 
        Protection and Affordable Care Act), and preventive health 
        services described in section 2713 of the Public Health Service 
        Act. These services represent a new nationwide coverage 
        requirement for health plans.
            (6) The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act provides 
        a narrow exemption for religious groups that object to 
        participation in government health programs generally, but it 
        does not allow purchasers, plan sponsors, and other 
        stakeholders with religious or moral objections to specific 
        required items or services to decline providing or obtaining 
        coverage of such items or services, or allow health care 
        entities with such objections to decline to provide them.
            (7) By creating new barriers to health insurance and 
        causing the loss of existing insurance arrangements, these 
        inflexible mandates in the Patient Protection and Affordable 
        Care Act jeopardize the ability of individuals to exercise 
        their rights of conscience and their ability to freely 
        participate in the health insurance and health care 
        marketplace.
            (8) In a significant move from the current free insurance 
        coverage market, the Department of Health and Human Services 
        issued an interim rule on August 1, 2011, requiring individual 
        and group health plans to cover free sterilization and all 
        contraceptives approved by the Food and Drug Administration.
            (9) Within the list of contraceptives approved by the Food 
        and Drug Administration are drugs containing abortifacient 
        substances and effects, including Levonorgestral commonly known 
        as Plan B and ulipristal acetate marketed as Ella. Thus, the 
        Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act effectively mandates 
        employers to provide health care insurance covering abortion 
        drugs and services, which is a violation of numerous Federal 
        provisions aforementioned.
            (10) On January 20, 2012, the Department of Health and 
        Human Services announced that it would not broaden the 
        religious exemption it included in its August 1, 2011, interim 
        rule. Instead, it gave institutions and employers with 
        religious and moral objections to including free sterilization 
        and all contraceptives approved by the Food and Drug 
        Administration in their offered health insurance plan an 
        additional year to ``adapt'' their consciences to the mandate.

SEC. 3. PROTECTING RIGHTS OF CONSCIENCE.

            (1) Prohibition on implementation of certain rules.--
        Notwithstanding any other provision of law, the Secretary of 
        Health and Human Services shall not implement or enforce any 
        provision of the interim final rule published on July 19, 2010 
        (75 Federal Register 41726) or any amendment to such rule, 
        including the amendment published on August 3, 2011 (76 Federal 
        Register 46621), insofar as such provision or amendment relates 
        to requiring any individual or entity to provide coverage of 
        sterilization or contraceptive services to which the individual 
        or entity is opposed on the basis of religious belief.
            (2) Clarification on application to ppaca requirements.--
        Section 1302(b) of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care 
        Act (Public Law 111-148; 42 U.S.C. 18022(b)) is amended by 
        adding at the end the following new paragraph:
            ``(6) Special rule.--A health plan shall not be considered 
        to have failed to provide the essential health benefits package 
        described in subsection (a) (or preventive health services 
        described in section 2713 of the Public Health Service Act), to 
        fail to be a qualified health plan, or to fail to fulfill any 
        other requirement under this title on the basis that the plan 
        does not provide (or pay for) coverage of sterilization or 
        contraceptive services because--
                    ``(A) providing (or paying for) such coverage is 
                contrary to the religious or moral beliefs of the 
                sponsor, issuer, or other entity offering the plan; or
                    ``(B) such coverage, in the case of individual 
                coverage, is contrary to the religious or moral beliefs 
                of the purchaser or beneficiary of the coverage.''.
                                 <all>
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