Compromise struck to preserve Obamacare’s preventive care mandate

The Texas conservatives challenging Obamacare’s preventive care mandate have reached a tentative compromise with the Justice Department that preserves free coverage for a range of services — from syphilis tests to depression screenings.

The agreement, which still needs approval from the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, keeps coverage intact nationwide while the case proceeds. The Biden administration, in exchange, pledged not to enforce the mandate to cover HIV prevention drugs and other preventive care services against the employers and individual workers who sued claiming that doing so violated their religious beliefs. This means that even if the...