White House proposes compromise on birth control coverage

[Commissar MercZ]

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/02/us...e.html?hp&_r=0

Spoiler:

Birth Control Rule Altered to Allay Religious Objections
By ROBERT PEAR

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration proposed yet another compromise on Friday in an effort to address the concerns of religious organizations that object to its policy requiring health insurance plans to cover contraceptives for women at no charge.

Kathleen Sebelius, the secretary of health and human services, said the proposal would guarantee free coverage of birth control “while respecting religious concerns.”

Churches and religious organizations that object to providing birth control coverage on religious grounds would not have to pay for it.

Under the proposal, female employees could get free birth control coverage through a separate plan that would be provided by a health insurer. The institution objecting to the coverage would not pay for the contraceptives. The costs would instead be paid by the insurance company, with the possibility of recouping the costs through lower health care expenses resulting in part from fewer births.

The White House has struggled for more than two years to balance its commitment to women’s rights and health care for all with the need to protect religious liberty. The contraception plan provoked a furor during last year’s presidential campaign, and the administration was forced to say that it would provide an accommodation for groups with religious objections. The subject of contraception coverage became part of a broader campaign dialogue over women’s issues.

The new health care law generally requires employers to provide women with coverage at no cost for “preventive care and screenings.” Under this provision, the administration says that most health plans must cover contraceptives for women free of charge.

Specifically, the administration says, employers must cover sterilization and the full range of contraceptive methods approved by the Food and Drug Administration, including emergency contraceptive pills, like those known as Ella and Plan B One-Step. Employers that do not provide such coverage will be subject to financial penalties.

The administration on Friday proposed a complicated arrangement to finance contraceptive coverage for employees of religious organizations that serve as their own insurers. The federal government would require health insurance companies to defray the cost indirectly, by paying higher fees for the privilege of selling health insurance to millions of Americans in new online markets run by the federal government.

The federal government was already planning to charge user fees to pay for the operation of those marketplaces, known as insurance exchanges. The cost of the fees can be passed on to consumers.

Administration officials also proposed a new definition of “religious employers” that can be exempted from the requirement to provide contraceptive coverage.

The exemption would be available to churches, other houses of worship and certain affiliated organizations.

Under the proposal, the administration said, “a house of worship would not be excluded from the exemption because, for example, it provides charitable social services to persons of different religious faiths or employs persons of different religious faiths.”

The administration had previously agreed to allow exemptions for certain religious employers. But church groups said the exemption was so narrow that it was almost meaningless.

Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan of New York, the president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, issued a noncommittal statement saying he welcomed the opportunity to study the proposed regulation.

Stephen F. Schneck, the director of the Institute for Policy Research and Catholic Studies at the Catholic University of America, said the proposed changes were “an important win for religious institutions.”

Under the original standard, a religious employer could not have qualified for the exemption if it employed or served large numbers of people of a different faith, as many Catholic hospitals, universities and social service agencies do.

The administration said that the new definition, though simpler, “would not expand the universe of employer plans that would qualify for the exemption beyond that which was intended” in a final regulation issued last year.

Basically it is a way to allay religious organizations on the healthcare requirement, so that their money isn't directly covering birth control. It claims at the same time the women would still be able to seek them through other means.

I find it odd that such a thing became an issue in the United States, presumably an advanced and secular nation. Honestly it became ridiculous when you had even owners of normal businesses (like Domino's Pizza) attempt to go around the coverage claiming it infringed on their religious freedoms.

[Rikupsoni]

It doesn't make sense to make such religious provisions. Then you might just as well grant Jehova's Wittnesses relief from all taxation because they don't recognize any governmental organs.

But I'm not sure if it's part of something that the government should be covering. It's a basic health-related commodity. Is the government also purchasing people toothpaste or WC paper?

[Commissar MercZ]

Originally Posted by Rikupsoni

It doesn't make sense to make such religious provisions. Then you might just as well grant Jehova's Wittnesses relief from all taxation because they don't recognize any governmental organs.

But I'm not sure if it's part of something that the government should be covering. It's a basic health-related commodity. Is the government also purchasing people toothpaste or WC paper?

This does not concern the government-backed plans- the government is not covering the insurance as far as the Affordable Healthcare Act/ Obamacare is concerned. This law instituted requirements on purchasing healthcare insurance (by and large private in the US) through the individual mandate, and for employers to provide plans to full-time employees if they meet certain guidelines. It's part of a requirement given to health care insurance providers that they should include coverage for certain contraceptives, excluding abortion of course.



What these groups were angry about is that they don't feel they need to provide health insurance to their employees that includes the contraceptive requirement, because it violates their religious freedoms according to lawsuits they have been filing. The only source of government involvement here are the penalties- if a company does not oblige by this they will get fined- so as they see it they're being "punished" for their religious views. The White House knows their opponents have been taking this up as a case of the White House's supposed "War on Religion", so they don't want it to be a continued media hotrod for them.

[Nemmerle]

If they just said it was violating their freedoms, no-one would care. You don't have any freedom to elect not to pay for it. But because it's violating their religious freedom suddenly it's special. Seperation of Church and State is such a crock of shit in the US. Just another Church influenced law.

Really the government should pay for contraception (I realise this is not what this is about, strictly speaking.) Because a lot of the people who, let's be honest, you don't want reproducing aren't going to have jobs. You don't want to be paying welfare for people - well, the most expensive thing someone can do in their life, most of the time, is having children. If it costs you ten thousand pounds worth of contraceptives over a poor person's life, but they don't reproduce, you've more than paid for the effort even on the assumption that they'd only have had one child.

[Adrian Ţepeş]

I just hope that one day we'll actually kick the fundamentalist influence on government. For some reason, they think the first amendment only flows one way: their way.

And you can't argue with them, because they don't listen. When they believe that the only system that works is one where an all-powerful god is making up all the rules, they won't make compromises. We give them WAY too much power.