Column: This huge insurer got caught breaking a law protecting contraceptive access, but its fine is a joke
A couple more bits of bad news: Not only is UnitedHealth a “repeat offender” in breaching contraception access laws (in the words of Gretchen Borchelt of the National Women’s Law Center), but it’s also not the only health insurer engaging in sophistry and pretexts to deny members access to birth control in violation of state and federal laws.
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“The ability to access birth control and the legal right to it are being threatened by extremists,” Borchelt says. “The threat goes against the will and the desires of the American public, which overwhelmingly supports birth control and overwhelmingly use it.”
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Whether because it is the nation’s largest health insurer or it has continued to place barriers in the way of members seeking coverage to which they’re entitled by law, UnitedHealth is “one of the insurance companies we hear about most often through our CoverHer hotline as being problematic,” Borchelt says. “They have been on notice that it has been violating the law in numerous ways; while the New York attorney general has done incredible work that will make a real difference for consumers not just in New York, but it shouldn’t have come to this.”