Biden admin. to pay $64K after scrapping natural family planning health coverage requirement
A federal court in Texas has ordered the Biden administration to pay nearly $65,000 in legal fees for removing a requirement to cover natural family planning healthcare.
U.S. District Judge Jeremy D. Kernodle issued an order last week in the case of family nurse practitioner Dr. Cami Jo Tice-Harouff, granting the plaintiff over $61,000 in fees, over $2,900 in expenses and $459.36 in costs for a total award of $64,588.66.
Tice-Harouff challenged a decision by the Health Resources and Services Administration of the Department of Health and Human Services in December 2021 to scrap regulation requiring coverage for natural family planning, allegedly without going through the proper administrative procedure.
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"The Court previously granted Dr. Tice-Harouff's motion for a preliminary injunction and enjoined Defendants from removing a requirement to provide insurance coverage for [fertility awareness-based methods of family planning] instruction," wrote Kernodle, appointed to the bench in 2018 by former President Donald Trump.
"The Court thus finds that Defendants were not substantially justified in 'every stage of the proceedings,' and Dr. Tice-Harouff is eligible to recover fees."
Alliance Defending Freedom Senior Counsel Julie Marie Blake, whose organization helped to represent Tice-Harouff, said in a statement that "the successful resolution of this case benefits all women who may wish to use fertility awareness-based methods and can now keep their preferred doctor and insurance coverage."
"The Biden administration can't impose its own preferred contraceptive methods on all women without explanation and without even allowing a real public comment period, as required by law," stated Blake.
"We were pleased to favorably settle this case on behalf of our client, Dr. Cami Jo Tice-Harouff, who is providing experienced care to women across the country."
Also known as natural family planning, FABM counseling involves women avoiding pregnancy by monitoring fertility signals during their menstrual cycles. It is generally performed by those morally or religiously opposed to using contraception.
According to the United Kingdom's National Health Service, natural family planning can be "up to 99% effective" provided that the program "is followed consistently and correctly."
In March 2016, the Health Resources and Services Administration issued guidelines requiring free FABM counseling coverage under the Affordable Care Act.
But in December 2021, the HRSA removed the regulatory language mandating the coverage, prompting FABM counseling provider Tice-Harouff to file a lawsuit.
In August of last year, Kernodle issued an injunction against the administration's decision to remove the mandated coverage, concluding that Tice-Harouff would be "irreparably harmed by the change."
"Defendants argue that deleting the [Fertility awareness-based methods counseling] sentence did not remove the obligation to provide cost-free coverage for FABM counseling — and thus the notice-and-comment requirement did not apply, and the deletion was not arbitrary and capricious," Kernodle wrote at the time.
"This argument is specious. When language is removed from a statute or rule, courts presume that the omission changed the text's meaning."
