President Obama has announced a compromise he is willing to enact on his mandatory abortion pill and contraceptive mandate. Employees of religious institutions that don’t believe in that sort of thing will have to ask the organization’s insurance company for the coverage, whereupon the insurance company will have to provide it free of charge without raising the institution’s rates. Thus the insurance company, not the faith-based employer, will be paying for the morning after pills and contraceptives. And the faith-based employer would not be directly providing for them. Rather, the employee would get them off the books.
See White House compromise still guarantees contraceptive coverage for women – The Washington Post.
Does this really solve the problem?
Aren’t all of the expenses of an insurance company ultimately and necessarily passed on to the customers?
And isn’t the result exactly the same apart from the moral casuistry of trying to shuffle around the responsibility?
And the administration isn’t saying how this would work with institutions, such as many non-profits, that are self-insured, in which employers collect premiums but then pay for employee health expenses themselves.
The Roman Catholic bishops note other problems: The government’s apparent dispensations apply only to non-profit organizations. A Catholic or other pro-life business owner would still have to directly provide free abortion pills and contraceptives, which would mean for the Catholic, being forced by law to be complicit in a grave sin.
Also church-related insurance companies (like Concordia Health Plan and its numerous Catholic equivalents) are not exempt from having to provide this kind of coverage.
Because of earlier H.H.S. machinations, the Morning After pill is now available over the counter. What insurance plans cover non-prescription medication? Your health insurance won’t pay for a bottle of aspirin or Nyquil. And yet the Obama administration is insisting that this over-the-counter medication be covered free of charge, without even a deductible. The agenda here is clearly that of pro-abortion fanaticism.
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