Obama's Catholic hospital decision

[Sbane]

1) A lot of women (many of my patients and family) take birth control for medical reasons other than contraception, like IBS, PBS, and Chronic Pelvic pain to name a few which most insurance plans will not cover even for these reasons. 

I think the Catholic church does cover BCP's for conditions like PCOS and the ones you mentioned. Could be wrong though.

And yeah morning after pills aren't abortions but try convincing some strong headed anti abortion activist of that. The opposition to plain birth control is just stunning to me. They must surely realize it would only lead to more abortions? And the opposition to sterilization....absolutely stunning.

[angus]

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0212/72345.html

I didnt know about this until today and I am offended as a Christian... I have tried to give the President the benefit of the doubt and believe that he is truly working for what he thinks is the right thing in terms of Obamacare but when he spits in the face of the nation's Catholics...

Imagine if this affected only Muslim hospitals. Hell- Osama was given full Islamic burial rights! The political correctness does not work both ways

You want to fire up the base? I guarantee this will be in every sermon across the nation on Sunday morning and we will vote for the Republican nominee- whoever it is. If Romney wins, I do not like the man but I will vote for him proudly after this decision!

Do we smell a first-amendment court case on the horizon?  My guess is that you might find a sympathetic federal judiciary.  Lately, they have been siding with the first amendment.  Just last year you had:

United States v. Jones, 5-4
Hosanna-Tabor Church v. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, 9-0
Pleasant Grove City v. Summum, 9-0
Snyder V. Phelps, 8-1
etc.

In some cases you could spin it as a win for religious liberty and in other cases you'd have to say it was a defeat for religious nuts, and in other cases it really didn't have a religious component, but in all cases the first amendment won.  And, to complicate matters, there are a boatload of pending Health Care Reform Bill cases as well.  

If I were a betting man I'd bet that this has the potential to interest the US supreme court.  Some of the legal wonks should chime in.

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

And if the Catholic Church now drops health coverage for their workers, they will bleed talent. Those who are in demand enough will leave leading to a lower quality of care. Of course they already lose a lot of talent due to their archaic rules on birth control pills. Trust me, I know.

But protecting the rights of women workers is important too. I wish they didn't cover plan B so the line in the sand could have been clearer. It is absolutely wrong to not cover birth control. Completely and utterly wrong.

Birth control is not exactly expensive. Of all the aspects of compensation to be a stickler about, it would be quite funny indeed if that was one of them!

Haha, true. People bitch about it all the time though. I know that for a fact but I doubt someone is going to not accept a job because of it. Although if you have a choice....

And if the Catholic church decides to drop their health plan, they will lose talented people. That makes sense, doesn't it?

more sense than Obama's all-or-nothing insurance requirement.

[Хahar 🤔]

What I don't understand is why health insurance would be provided through an employer in the first place. How are they at all connected?

As a side note, what are the theological justifications for opposition to birth control? I'm not terribly familiar with this sort of thing.

[Sbane]

What I don't understand is why health insurance would be provided through an employer in the first place. How are they at all connected?

True. Although today, on average, about 70-80% of insurance premiums are paid for by the employer. Something to think about.

[angus]

What I don't understand is why health insurance would be provided through an employer in the first place. How are they at all connected?

Most of us aren't independently wealthy, so we have to maintain gainful employment.  In exchange for labor, we are compensated.  Compensation usually includes money, but it may also include fringe benefits.  Given that medical services are the second-fastest inflating sector of the economy, many folks are being priced out of range.  So part of a good job offer might include major medical and dental coverage.  The fastest inflating sector, of course, is higher education, and in some sector that's an added benefit.  Both my wife and I have jobs that include tuition wavers for our children as an added benefit.  We appreciate both the medical and educational options, without which the job offer would hardly have been sufficiently enticing to be acceptable.

Of course, if the government would divorce itself from all aspects of medical services, then the equilibrium price for those services would fall, and we probably wouldn't need to have any insurance programs at all.  That would be preferable, but it is unlikely in our increasingly collectivist society, so most of us want decent insurance coverage as part of the benefits package.

[memphis]

What I don't understand is why health insurance would be provided through an employer in the first place. How are they at all connected?

Most of us aren't independently wealthy, so we have to maintain gainful employment.  In exchange for labor, we are compensated.  Compensation usually includes money, but it may also include fringe benefits.  Given that medical services are the second-fastest inflating sector of the economy, many folks are being priced out of range.  So part of a good job offer might include major medical and dental coverage.  The fastest inflating sector, of course, is higher education, and in some sector that's an added benefit.  Both my wife and I have jobs that include tuition wavers for our children as an added benefit.  We appreciate both the medical and educational options, without which the job offer would hardly have been sufficiently enticing to be acceptable.

Of course, if the government would divorce itself from all aspects of medical services, then the equilibrium price for those services would fall, and we probably wouldn't need to have any insurance programs at all.  That would be preferable, but it is unlikely in our increasingly collectivist society, so most of us want decent insurance coverage as part of the benefits package.

Yes, if not for the government, a quadruple bypass would be easily affordable for all without any sort of insurance

[Fuzzybigfoot]

Shouldn't an employer, of whatever faith, respect whatever choice the employee wants to make?  This may come as a shock to some, but some Catholics don't agree with the Church on every little thing regarding contreceptives.  There's no way this is comparable to force-feeding Muslims, that's just retarded.    

[krazen1211]

Shouldn't an employer, of whatever faith, respect whatever choice the employee wants to make?  This may come as a shock to some, but some Catholics don't agree with the Church on every little thing regarding contreceptives.  There's no way this is comparable to force-feeding Muslims, that's just retarded.    

They do. You can shell out of pocket for your birth control pills to your heart's content.

[Torie]

There was no reason at all as to why this needed to be done. Sebelius and Obama did it just because they could. No one is going to stop them. They just argue that religious institutions are not exampt from the law. Well they wrote the f***ing law on purpose the screw the Church over. The Obama administration could very easily have given the Church an exemption. They didn't seem to have any trouble with exempting the Amish from the healthcare bill since they don't believe in buying insurance on religious grounds.

It will be a cold day in hell before I ever vote for that man. But then again it's been that way for a long time...

This does not cover abortions, just contraception. I would understand the outrage if they were forced to cover abortions for their workers, but birth control? Come on now....it's not even plan B. And of course most catholics agree with the rational view on contraception (excluding plan B).

What's wrong with just requiring Catholic hospitals to refer out patients seeking birth control products?

Well, if it was just about patients it would be something else but this is about health plans offered to their workers. There is no reason why you shouldn't have birth control (not plan B) covered under your health plan if you work for one.

Who the hell goes to a hospital to get birth control anyways?

So why can't the patients go elsewhere then under their plan, or is their plan limited to some Catholic Hospital?  I don't get it. The only place where I see a problem is if there is some emergency situation, where for some reason the Catholic Hospital considers it against Catholic doctrine to handle. I guess an emergency abortion where the health of the mother short of life threatening would be an example. The birth control angle escapes me entirely however. Any reasonable balancing test would I think defer to the hospital's preferences.  Or require the health plan to offer other health service providers for birth control, where the ones they have refuse to provide it.

Make sense?

The catholic church does not want to pay for it any way, including within their hospital employees health plans. No one is forcing the hospitals to perform abortions or dispense Plan B, birth control pills or condoms.

Yes, I understand now. Obamacare required all health plans to cover birth control services without a co-pay or deductible. That was silly. Why does Obamacare micro-manage that way the details of health insurance plans?  Given that it does, the finesse is to require the employers to pay the employees a bit more in pay, so that if they choose, that extra bit will allow them to purchase the additional coverage. That is financially neutral. Letting the employers just offer more limited coverage is not.

That is my initial cut at it anyway.

[Oakvale]

Question - do Catholics actually vote based on things like this?

I mean, I'm sceptical enough that (the vast majority of) Catholics are devout enough to bother voting on things like abortion, but birth control? Seriously?

I second Xahar's request for clarification on the theological reasons for opposing birth control. This fascinates me.

[Sbane]

There was no reason at all as to why this needed to be done. Sebelius and Obama did it just because they could. No one is going to stop them. They just argue that religious institutions are not exampt from the law. Well they wrote the f***ing law on purpose the screw the Church over. The Obama administration could very easily have given the Church an exemption. They didn't seem to have any trouble with exempting the Amish from the healthcare bill since they don't believe in buying insurance on religious grounds.

It will be a cold day in hell before I ever vote for that man. But then again it's been that way for a long time...

This does not cover abortions, just contraception. I would understand the outrage if they were forced to cover abortions for their workers, but birth control? Come on now....it's not even plan B. And of course most catholics agree with the rational view on contraception (excluding plan B).

What's wrong with just requiring Catholic hospitals to refer out patients seeking birth control products?

Well, if it was just about patients it would be something else but this is about health plans offered to their workers. There is no reason why you shouldn't have birth control (not plan B) covered under your health plan if you work for one.

Who the hell goes to a hospital to get birth control anyways?

So why can't the patients go elsewhere then under their plan, or is their plan limited to some Catholic Hospital?  I don't get it. The only place where I see a problem is if there is some emergency situation, where for some reason the Catholic Hospital considers it against Catholic doctrine to handle. I guess an emergency abortion where the health of the mother short of life threatening would be an example. The birth control angle escapes me entirely however. Any reasonable balancing test would I think defer to the hospital's preferences.  Or require the health plan to offer other health service providers for birth control, where the ones they have refuse to provide it.

Make sense?

The catholic church does not want to pay for it any way, including within their hospital employees health plans. No one is forcing the hospitals to perform abortions or dispense Plan B, birth control pills or condoms.

Yes, I understand now. Obamacare required all health plans to cover birth control services without a co-pay or deductible. That was silly. Why does Obamacare micro-manage that way the details of health insurance plans?  Given that it does, the finesse is to require the employers to pay the employees a bit more in pay, so that if they choose, that extra bit will allow them to purchase the additional coverage. That is financially neutral. Letting the employers just offer more limited coverage is not.

That is my initial cut at it anyway.

Yes, that would be fine but would the Catholic church accept it?

[Torie]

There was no reason at all as to why this needed to be done. Sebelius and Obama did it just because they could. No one is going to stop them. They just argue that religious institutions are not exampt from the law. Well they wrote the f***ing law on purpose the screw the Church over. The Obama administration could very easily have given the Church an exemption. They didn't seem to have any trouble with exempting the Amish from the healthcare bill since they don't believe in buying insurance on religious grounds.

It will be a cold day in hell before I ever vote for that man. But then again it's been that way for a long time...

This does not cover abortions, just contraception. I would understand the outrage if they were forced to cover abortions for their workers, but birth control? Come on now....it's not even plan B. And of course most catholics agree with the rational view on contraception (excluding plan B).

What's wrong with just requiring Catholic hospitals to refer out patients seeking birth control products?

Well, if it was just about patients it would be something else but this is about health plans offered to their workers. There is no reason why you shouldn't have birth control (not plan B) covered under your health plan if you work for one.

Who the hell goes to a hospital to get birth control anyways?

So why can't the patients go elsewhere then under their plan, or is their plan limited to some Catholic Hospital?  I don't get it. The only place where I see a problem is if there is some emergency situation, where for some reason the Catholic Hospital considers it against Catholic doctrine to handle. I guess an emergency abortion where the health of the mother short of life threatening would be an example. The birth control angle escapes me entirely however. Any reasonable balancing test would I think defer to the hospital's preferences.  Or require the health plan to offer other health service providers for birth control, where the ones they have refuse to provide it.

Make sense?

The catholic church does not want to pay for it any way, including within their hospital employees health plans. No one is forcing the hospitals to perform abortions or dispense Plan B, birth control pills or condoms.

Yes, I understand now. Obamacare required all health plans to cover birth control services without a co-pay or deductible. That was silly. Why does Obamacare micro-manage that way the details of health insurance plans?  Given that it does, the finesse is to require the employers to pay the employees a bit more in pay, so that if they choose, that extra bit will allow them to purchase the additional coverage. That is financially neutral. Letting the employers just offer more limited coverage is not.

That is my initial cut at it anyway.

Yes, that would be fine but would the Catholic church accept it?

I doubt it, but it does attempt to show some sensitivity, and give them some distance, while creating a neutral basis for saying it is not appropriate that they be given a special exemption from the level of benefits that are required to be provided to employees. As I said, one must add to the list of the many Obamacare flaws, that it is micromanaging the content of health plans. That is just too much government power, and beyond providing certain basic parameters to health plans - unnecessary, and in this case, particularly since the costs involved are not all that great. If one is running the risk of a catastrophic situation not being covered by insurance, that is an entirely different matter.

What I am trying to do is come up with a fair balancing test. Most of the time, that means neither side gets all that they want.

[Link]

What's wrong with just requiring Catholic hospitals to refer out patients seeking birth control products?

What's wrong with all Catholic hospitals being cut off from all public funding?

You take the money... You follow the rules.

[Beet]

As a side note, what are the theological justifications for opposition to birth control? I'm not terribly familiar with this sort of thing.

"In 1968, Pope Paul VI issued his landmark encyclical letter Humanae Vitae (Latin, "Human Life"), which reemphasized the Church’s constant teaching that it is always intrinsically wrong to use contraception to prevent new human beings from coming into existence.

Contraception is "any action which, either in anticipation of the conjugal act [sexual intercourse], or in its accomplishment, or in the development of its natural consequences, proposes, whether as an end or as a means, to render procreation impossible" (Humanae Vitae 14). This includes sterilization, condoms and other barrier methods, spermicides, coitus interruptus (withdrawal method), the Pill, and all other such methods. "

[angus]

Yes, if not for the government, a quadruple bypass would be easily affordable for all without any sort of insurance

I certainly never made such a claim--"easily affordable for all" are your words, not mine--and you are picking an extreme example, but just to be a good sport and play your game, I'd say that one can easily make a sound argument that a quadruple bypass in the United States, which costs about 40 thousand dollars, would cost about five thousand dollars in an alternate universe in which the trend toward government-sponsored medical services, which started in the 60s, had never taken hold.

[Beet]

Yes, if not for the government, a quadruple bypass would be easily affordable for all without any sort of insurance

I certainly never made such a claim--"easily affordable for all" are your words, not mine--and you are picking an extreme example, but just to be a good sport and play your game, I'd say that one can easily make a sound argument that a quadruple bypass in the United States, which costs about 40 thousand dollars, would cost about five thousand dollars in an alternate universe in which the trend toward government-sponsored medical services, which started in the 60s, had never taken hold.

What argument is that? Most of the argument I've seen to that end go something like this- government subsidy to X increases demand for X; the higher the demand for X, the higher the price. That seems intuitive enough, but it also assumes that X is more widely used than otherwise, which defeats the whole problem of high cost.

[patrick1]

As a side note, what are the theological justifications for opposition to birth control? I'm not terribly familiar with this sort of thing.

"In 1968, Pope Paul VI issued his landmark encyclical letter Humanae Vitae (Latin, "Human Life"), which reemphasized the Church’s constant teaching that it is always intrinsically wrong to use contraception to prevent new human beings from coming into existence.

Contraception is "any action which, either in anticipation of the conjugal act [sexual intercourse], or in its accomplishment, or in the development of its natural consequences, proposes, whether as an end or as a means, to render procreation impossible" (Humanae Vitae 14). This includes sterilization, condoms and other barrier methods, spermicides, coitus interruptus (withdrawal method), the Pill, and all other such methods. "

The basic, oversimplified teaching is that the all sexual acts should be open to life and within the sacrament of marriage.  This underpins the position on a range of issues including premarital sex, abortion, contraception, homosexuality and masturbation.

The belief is rooted in both scripture and Christian>>>Catholic tradition.  To pick some sites out of the air w/o vetting

http://www.scripturecatholic.com/contraception.html
http://onemoresoul.com/contraception/church-teaching-contraception-abortion/what-does-the-bible-say-about-contraception.html

[angus]

Yes, if not for the government, a quadruple bypass would be easily affordable for all without any sort of insurance

I certainly never made such a claim--"easily affordable for all" are your words, not mine--and you are picking an extreme example, but just to be a good sport and play your game, I'd say that one can easily make a sound argument that a quadruple bypass in the United States, which costs about 40 thousand dollars, would cost about five thousand dollars in an alternate universe in which the trend toward government-sponsored medical services, which started in the 60s, had never taken hold.

What argument is that? Most of the argument I've seen to that end go something like this- government subsidy to X increases demand for X; the higher the demand for X, the higher the price. That seems intuitive enough, but it also assumes that X is more widely used than otherwise, which defeats the whole problem of high cost.

pretty much.  I think we're on the same frequency, beet.  As I said, his is an extreme example.  The population of my household is three, and between us we have 89 years of living, and none of us has ever required a quadruple bypass.  What we have required is azithromycin, casts for broken arms, cough medicine, X-rays, vaccinations, general obstetrical services, general pediatric services, circumcisions, and the like, much of which could be had for the cost of a chicken or a pound of butter at one time.

[memphis]

Yes, if not for the government, a quadruple bypass would be easily affordable for all without any sort of insurance

I certainly never made such a claim--"easily affordable for all" are your words, not mine--and you are picking an extreme example, but just to be a good sport and play your game, I'd say that one can easily make a sound argument that a quadruple bypass in the United States, which costs about 40 thousand dollars, would cost about five thousand dollars in an alternate universe in which the trend toward government-sponsored medical services, which started in the 60s, had never taken hold.

What argument is that? Most of the argument I've seen to that end go something like this- government subsidy to X increases demand for X; the higher the demand for X, the higher the price. That seems intuitive enough, but it also assumes that X is more widely used than otherwise, which defeats the whole problem of high cost.

pretty much.  I think we're on the same frequency, beet.  As I said, his is an extreme example.  The population of my household is three, and between us we have 89 years of living, and none of us has ever required a quadruple bypass.  What we have required is azithromycin, casts for broken arms, cough medicine, X-rays, vaccinations, general obstetrical services, general pediatric services, circumcisions, and the like, much of which could be had for the cost of a chicken or a pound of butter at one time.

Yeah, lemme know when you find an obstetrician who will work for a chicken... And I'm sincerely pleased to hear that your family has enjoyed good health. Many people are not so lucky.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

There was no reason at all as to why this needed to be done. Sebelius and Obama did it just because they could. No one is going to stop them. They just argue that religious institutions are not exampt from the law. Well they wrote the f***ing law on purpose the screw the Church over. The Obama administration could very easily have given the Church an exemption. They didn't seem to have any trouble with exempting the Amish from the healthcare bill since they don't believe in buying insurance on religious grounds.

It will be a cold day in hell before I ever vote for that man. But then again it's been that way for a long time...

Uh, you do know Sebelius is Catholic right?

Anyway some time I'll see if I can find The Daily Show interview, she and Jon Stewart basically discussed this on employers that would pay fines and not provide their employees insurance and how this could fund the exchanges that would.

BRTD, from a political perspective no one cares what they talk about at your church.  You just don't have the #'s to matter.  Even if many Catholics or nominal Catholics could not be bothered by this, it still matters politically.  If only 10%, you are still talking about millions of votes and in a swing demographic.  This was spoken about from the pulpit and was in the church bulletins:

We're actually bigger than many Catholic parishes, I'd estimate we have around 300-400 attendees each week at our three services based on dimensions of the room...but anyway my point is moreso that not every church will be talking about this despite what he said. Most at mine would not even be bothered obviously (I'm sure there are many people at my church against abortion because of evangelical backgrounds and many Bethel U students, but as noted this doesn't deal with abortion.) And yes it'll piss off some Catholics...right wing Catholics who won't be voting for Obama anyway. One of his advisors was even quoted as saying as such in the article. Believe me, you're not going to rally American Catholics against someone in defense of the church's stance on birth control.

[angus]

Yeah, lemme know when you find an obstetrician who will work for a chicken... And I'm sincerely pleased to hear that your family has enjoyed good health. Many people are not so lucky.

I wish you good health as well.  But that's my point:  no obstetrician will work for a chicken.  It cost about ten thousand dollars to have our baby, and that was more than seven years ago.  Of course, we didn't pay ten thousand.  I suppose we paid maybe 300 of that, not including monthly premium payroll deductions.  But somebody paid bills totalling about ten thousand.  I know because I kept all the paperwork.  Should it cost that much?  Would it cost that much if it weren't for bureaucratic excesses?

Let's say I wake up one morning and I know I have strep throat.  I could go downstairs to a biologists lab and borrow an assay kit and check it to be sure, but I probably wouldn't.  I know what strep feels like, and I know when I have it, and I know what I need to take, and how much to take, to rid myself of it.  Now, if I'm in the ideal world, I walk down to the corner pharmacy, and I pick up a package of pills.  Azithromycin.  for me, 600 mg per day for three days.  for my son, maybe a 200 mg per day for five or six days.  This little package costs me 15 dollars.  That it's.  Just fifteen dollars and a little patience, and I'm all better within a week.

But no!  I gotta go to see a physician, because by law only a physician (or a PA or a certified nurse practicioner) can prescribe antibiotics.  And I gotta pay 50 dollars for an office visit.  Then I have to pay for the strep test, which costs another fifty dollars due to USP bureaucracy.  Then I go to the pharmacist and I pay another fifty dollars for the drug.  That's a hundred and fifty dollars to cure what it ought to cost 15 dollars to cure!  A ten-fold increase over practical reality.  Now, I have insurance, so the office visit is "free" and for the strep test I get charged maybe seven dollars.  And for the drugs I pay the fifty but later I get a check in the mail for sixty percent of that.  So I only end up paying something like 27 dollars, but 27 dollars is still more than 15 dollars, and we're not even counting the premium I pay every month.  And think about those poor bastards who don't even have insurance.  They have to cough up the 150 dollars if they don't want to shrivel up and die. 

It doesn't have to be that way.  It only is that way because of increasing government intervention.  Uncle Sam, along with the various legislatures, have determined what to pay for, how much to pay for it, and how often to pay for it.  They run the game.  They're the house, man.  They are the green 0 and the green 00 on the roulette wheel.  Moreover, this administrative creep has been increasing for fifty years, so it's no wonder that over the past fifty years medical costs have skyrocketed.  And now they're making mandates!  Mandates to insurance companies and mandates to individuals.  Mandating benefits is sort of like saying to someone in the market for a new car, "if you can’t afford a Cadillac loaded with options, you'll have to walk."  And you support all this?!  You must be richer than I.

[patrick1]

BRTD, you know that there are millions of church going Catholics who are Democrats or Independents who lean toward the Democrats. (Further, the issue is about more than birth control.) It is not just about whether these people will now vote for Romney but also whether they will bother showing up to the polls to cast their votes for Obama.

I personally don't think that this will have that big of an impact politically, and as it stands now I still think Obama will win handily in November.  Tbs, I think this does raise some more interesting legal questions on the governments' coercive powers in relation to religious organizations.

[TheDeadFlagBlues]

Politically, this was a moronic move.

That being said, anyone who is actually concerned about this is a moron. As long as we exist in a system where employer-based health insurance is the norm, plans should be required to cover essentials like birth control. The Catholic church will change their position on birth control at some point anyways so I'm not too concerned.

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

It's not just  those who oppose birth control that are upset about this of course.

Imagine, once was a time respecting people's rights of conscience was considered the liberal position.