What bishops want.
February 7, 2013, 6:55 pm
Posted by Grant Gallicho
Today, Cardinal Timothy Dolan released a statement outlining the USCCB’s objections to the Obama administration’s revision of the revision of the contraception mandate. The new rule scotches the previous iteration’s much-maligned four-part definition of “religious employer,” and proposes arrangements to make sure religious employers — including colleges, hospitals, and charities — won’t have to pay for or refer for contraception coverage in their employee health plans. In other words, the Department of Health and Human Services listened to its critics and attempted to allay their concerns. As the editors of Commonweal put it, “This will do.” The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops disagrees.
First, a word of praise for the tone of Cardinal Dolan’s statement. It avoids the hyperbolic rhetoric that has characterized this debate for far too long. The cardinal states that the bishops are open to further discussion. He acknowledges that the Obama administration “has heard some previously expressed concerns and that it is open to dialogue,” and promises “additional, careful study.” He notes that the new proposal does away with the “exceedingly narrow” definition of “religious employer,” which, the bishops claimed, “created a ‘second class’ of citizenship within our religious community” — subordinating Catholic charities to Catholic parishes. But apparently that’s not enough for the bishops.
“The administration’s proposal maintains its inaccurate distinction among religious ministries. It appears to offer second-class status to our first-class institutions in Catholic health care, Catholic education, and Catholic Charities.” Yet Dolan fails to mention what replaced the four-part definition. The USCCB had called that definition “unprecedented” in federal law. So HHS lifted the revised definition from something with plenty of precedent: the federal tax code. According to the new rule, any religiously affiliated employer that has nonprofit status simply has to self-certify with HHS in order to opt out of the contraception mandate. If the employer pays an insurance company for employee health coverage, it has to notify the insurer that it doesn’t want contraception included in the plan, and the insurer in turn automatically enrolls employees in a separate plan at no cost to them or to their employer. If the objecting employer is self-insured, it just has to inform its plan administrator, which will arrange for free contraception coverage for employees.
(This is where it gets complicated. “Self-insurance” is a misnomer. Rather than pay an insurance company premiums, some employers prefer to pay directly for their employees’ health care. This requires a lot of cash. Such companies typically pay an insurance company to handle administrative tasks. The administrator generates “insurance cards” for the employees, and every time a worker incurs a medical expense, the administrator handles the paperwork and bills the employer for the service, according to an agreed-upon fee schedule. Administration fees are much lower than insurance premiums, so requiring administrators to cover the upfront costs of contraception would be unfair. They’d be paying for savings that accrue only to the “self-insured” company — covering people who don’t want babies is cheaper than covering those who do. That’s the financial incentive for insurers to give away contraception to people they already cover. In order to make it worthwhile for administrators of “self-insured” plans, HHS proposes to reduce fees insurance companies will have to pay in order to sell their plans on the new health-care exchanges. Either way, the idea is that no religiously affiliated employer will have to contract for, pay for, or refer for contraception coverage.)
http://www.commonwealmagazine.org/blog/?p=23108
The USCCB statement:
http://usccb.org/news/2013/13-037.cfm
= new reply since forum marked as read
Highlight:
NoneDon't highlight anything
5 newestHighlight 5 most recent replies
47of74
(18,470 posts)....named the Pope as the absolute ruler of the United States for life these guys would still find something to complain about.
rug
(82,333 posts)
CBHagman
(16,981 posts)...as a member of the laity, I find it frustrating, and not a little appalling, that the bishops keep their powder dry on most issues and then man the battle stations on A) gay marriage and B) contraception and/or abortion.
rug
(82,333 posts)
mykpart
(3,879 posts)And Catholic employers have been using these group plans for 40 years. So why is it OK when they choose to do it, but terrible when they are required to do it? It's hypocrisy and politics disguised as moral outrage.
rug
(82,333 posts)olegramps
(8,200 posts)It seems that the bishops and their Opus Dei comrades , along with the Protestant extreme fundamentalists, are unwilling to accept that our government is a founded on secular principles of the absolute separation of church and state. What they want to impose on the citizens is exactly the form of theocracy that has mired the Islamic societies in ignorance and superstition. I don't believe that most of these fanatics have any better regard for women than that is held in Islamic Theocracies.
47of74
(18,470 posts)...of the exceptionally low regard many of these clowns have for women.
