According to this news article, contraception coverage will NOT be standard for "grandfathered" health plans.
So what are grandfathered health insurance plans? Quoting from HealthCare.gov (emphasis mine):
If you have health coverage from a plan that existed on March 23, 2010 — and that has covered at least one person continuously from that day forward — your plan may be considered a “grandfathered” plan.
This is true even if you enrolled in that job-based plan sometime later.
A grandfathered health plan isn’t required to comply with some of the consumer protections of the Affordable Care Act that apply to other health plans that are not grandfathered.
Unlike other health plans, job-based plans and grandfathered plans are not required to:
* provide certain recommended preventive services at no additional charge to you.
* offer new protections when you are appealing claims and coverage denials.
* protect your choice of health care providers and your access to emergency care.
But what about the annual renewals? Doesn't that git rid of the grandfathered status?
Well, the answer is it depends:
Grandfathered health plans will be able to make routine changes to their policies and maintain their status. These routine changes include cost adjustments to keep pace with medical inflation, adding new benefits, making modest adjustments to existing benefits, voluntarily adopting new consumer protections under the new law, or making changes to comply with State or other Federal laws. Premium changes are not taken into account when determining whether or not a plan is grandfathered.
Plans will lose their grandfathered status if they choose to make significant changes that reduce benefits or increase costs to consumers. If a plan loses its grandfathered status, then consumers in these plans will gain additional new benefits including:
* Coverage of recommended prevention services with no cost sharing; and
* Patient protections such as guaranteed access to OB-GYNs and pediatricians.
Personally, I'm happy to now have free preventative health care visits, which started this year for my family, and I think this change (although not mandated) can probably be attributed to HCR.