Birth Control Pills covered by insurance

DB

I keep reading bits and pieces about the EEOC finding that an employer's insurance plan discriminated against women because it didn't cover contraceptive prescriptions but I can't seem to find the whole story. Who was the case on and where was it located? Does it matter that a plan covers the Pill for "medical necessity" but not contraception? Any other information would be appreciated.

Tony Kessler

The EEOC's Viagra/contraceptives decision is located at [url]http://www.eeoc.gov/docs/decision-contraception.html[/url]. Illinois Employment Law Letter also ran an article about the decision in February 2001 (page 6). If you're a Law Center member, you have access to the searchable database and should be able to pull up a copy of the article real quickly. When you do the search, fill in "Pregnancy" as the subject, and limit your search to "IL" in the year "2001." The article you're seeking will be the only one that pops up. For those of you who subscribe to the Employment Law Letter in other states, many of the attorney editors in your states also ran an article about the decision in February or March. If any of you Law Center members have trouble accessing the database, please contact Christy Reeder at [email]webeditor@HRHero.com[/email]. Hope this helps.

Tony Kessler
Director of Editorial
M. Lee Smith Publishers LLC
(615) 661-0249 ext. 8068

DB

Thank you for the great resources. This story gets more interesting. I took the EEOC decision to our insurance agent (who is supposed to be on our side) and asked "What do we need to do about this?" Apparently, when our policies were updated on May 1, 2001 coverage for contraceptives was added but neither the agent or the sales rep bothered to mention it and the paperwork was in processing so I didn't have anything to read yet. I was livid and I'm now much less trusting of these other individuals. Just a word of warning to any other small companies who may be relying on outside help for benefits - ask lots of questions and review everything.