The controversy about the new restrictions being placed on the exercise of conscience by the Obama Administration's proposals for its health care law focuses on the areas of contraception, sterilization and abortion. A particular fact in this controversy needs to be kept in mind.
Currently, the Archdiocese of Mobile has a health benefits plan for all employees through BlueCross BlueShield of Alabama. In this plan, there are a number of specific exclusions listed. Excluded from coverage are procedures like cosmetic surgery, hearing aids, for treatment of obesity, routine well child care, speech therapy...
Also explicitly listed are the following--
Services or expenses for elective abortions.
Oral contraceptives or other birth control methods except when they are prescribed by a physician for a medical condition and not for the purpose of birth control.
Services or expenses of any kind for or related to elective sterilizations.
We learn 2 things by this list--
1. The issue of alternative uses for contraceptive drugs is taken into account in our current coverage.
2. What the Catholic Church is asking is not that it be allowed to eliminate any coverage, but rather that it simply be allowed to continue its current health-care policy, which is in line with Catholic moral teaching.
The number of other exclusions makes it clear that there are limits to what can and should be covered by insurance. Inevitably, there must be some out-of-pocket costs for health care, and these vary from corporation to corporation, from business to business, from church to church. The idea of leveling the playing field with universal health care is a noble one, except when issues of conscience and moral teaching come into play. Currently, health care for the Archdiocese of Mobile is not "universal," but then it is not "nothing," either...
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"Archdiocese of Mobile has a health benefits plan for all employees . . . "
ReplyDelete*Employees* of the Catholic Church.
What people employed for the Church would be using BC anyway? Is the Church afraid of its members getting BC and having to pay for it? The Church doesn't have enough faith in their employees to trust them to not get these elective treatments/medications?
Personally, why anyone would get an insurance plan that doesn't cover birth control is beyond me. But that's just me, a nonbeliever.
I don't think you have to be Catholic to be employed by the Catholic Church. If that is the case, you may personally believe something different from their moral teaching. But that doesn't mean the Church should have to pay for it. But that's just me, a Catholic.
ReplyDelete"The idea of leveling the playing field with universal health care is a noble one, except when issues of conscience and moral teaching come into play."
ReplyDeleteTo the extent that the federal government is involved in mandating this care, the idea becomes considerably less noble. This recent controversy serves as Exhibit A that when we place our trust in an increasingly secular government to determine the manner in which health care is provided, we will be disappointed. It is folly to think that "disagreements" on issues of conscience will not increase as the new health care law becomes more fully implemented. The law is designed to make the State the ultimate arbiter of health care decisions. Can we trust that the government has the dignity of the human person in mind? The evidence so far is not promising. As new regulations continue to be promulgated, I fear continued encroachment by the State upon the God-given individual liberties which we Americans have heretofore enjoyed.