Catholic Health Association snubs US bishops, accepts HHS mandate

markomalley · Jul 9, 2013

From Catholic World News:
Once again breaking with the US bishops’ conference, the Catholic Health Association (CHA) has announced that it is satisfied with the latest regulations offered by the Obama administration for the implementation of health-care rules that require coverage for contraception.

The CHA—which had strongly backed the Obama health-care reform plans—issued a memorandum to members saying that the latest rules from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) resolved CHA’s concerns about involvement in providing contraceptive coverage. “We are pleased that our members now have an accommodation that will not require them to contract, provide, pay or refer for contraceptive coverage,” the CHA pronounced.

Anybody remember what happened to Margaret McBride?

bcuster · Jul 9, 2013

May God have mercy!

PTL · Jul 9, 2013

CHA should drop the word “Catholic”. Shame on Catholics who support HHS!

Minnesota1 · Jul 9, 2013

Sigh. Once again we sell out principles for being politically correct. Where is our leadership within Catholicism

mymamamary · Jul 9, 2013

markomalley said:
From Catholic World News:
Once again breaking with the US bishops’ conference, the Catholic Health Association (CHA) has announced that it is satisfied with the latest regulations offered by the Obama administration for the implementation of health-care rules that require coverage for contraception.

The CHA—which had strongly backed the Obama health-care reform plans—issued a memorandum to members saying that the latest rules from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) resolved CHA’s concerns about involvement in providing contraceptive coverage. “We are pleased that our members now have an accommodation that will not require them to contract, provide, pay or refer for contraceptive coverage,” the CHA pronounced.

Anybody remember what happened to Margaret McBride?

**Hit 'em with the law: Excommunicate them, in a public ceremony. I know that they have already excommunicated themselves by their actions, however, I think a PUBLIC excommunication with all the Bishops would make more of a statement. **

LisaA · Jul 9, 2013

Is this the group headed by Sr Carol? I remember her jumping into supporting Obamacare. She backed off a bit but was clearly looking for a reason to get behind this debacle. One can feel so good about being magnanimous with OPM after all. Nothing like the Left to gin up feel good ideas that always turn to rot when put into practice.

Lisa

3DOCTORS · Jul 9, 2013

mymamamary said:
**Hit 'em with the law: Excommunicate them, in a public ceremony. I know that they have already excommunicated themselves by their actions, however, I think a PUBLIC excommunication with all the Bishops would make more of a statement. **

Or something. Once we cave in - as has already happened with nominally Catholic politicians, and iffy Catholic healthcare institutions - we are going to be seen as pushovers and lose the last bit of respect. We must teach the Obama-ites how to treat us and this is not the message to send that the HHS baloney should be allowed to stand. :nope:

For that matter, defiance of the Bishops and the Magisterium should never have been tolerated in ways it has been over the last three decades or so. There is much confusion between authority, which is legitimate and seeks the common good, and authoritarianism, which is not. I can understand this - I have “authority issues” myself and would not want to be a boss for fear of being a horrible one. I wonder if some of our Bishops share a similar fear and find it difficult to be strong when they need to be . . .

ProVobis · Jul 9, 2013

From the article

“We are pleased that our members now have an accommodation that will **not require **them to contract, provide, pay or refer for contraceptive coverage,” the CHA pronounced.

Doesn’t this negate the mandate? Am I missing something here?

Rence · Jul 9, 2013

markomalley said:
“We are pleased that our members now have an accommodation that will not require them to contract, provide, pay or refer for contraceptive coverage,” the CHA pronounced.

I don’t see a problem with their announcement.

_Abyssinia · Jul 10, 2013

Excerpt

Catholic Health Association’s 3 Errors Supporting the Abortion-Pill Mandate

Here are CHA’s three big errors in defending this rule:

CHA: Insurance plans for non-profit religious groups won’t cover contraception?

FALSE. The final rule tells religious non-profits says that they will provide health insurance to their employees. Then it says the insurance company they are paying will give their employees what the rule calls “coverage” of early-abortion drugs, contraception and sterilization. The coverage comes in the form of “payments” for those items, which is what coverage is: when you incur a cost, the insurance company pays you for it. This coverage will go to the group’s employees, from the group’s insurance company, only because that religious group is paying that insurance company for that insurance.

How is this not providing a plan that provides objectionable coverage?

In response, the rule and CHA recite their mantra: the payments are not part of the health insurance plan. The health insurance plan even gets to write down on a piece of paper that this plan doesn’t cover these things.

But the coverage is necessarily part of the religious group’s insurance. There is no other insurance plan. There is only one plan. Where do the “payments” come from? Only from the same insurer, who the group is paying, for the employees’ one plan. The coverage is part of the plan.Princess-bride-image

So religious groups are unavoidably facilitating and causing the coverage–even “providing” it. Simply incanting the idea that they aren’t doing so doesn’t change the reality that they are. There is no other plan–the coverage comes from the religious group’s provision of a plan. Maybe some groups think that providing such coverage is morally acceptable. But denying that they are providing the coverage is denying the details of the arrangement.

The rule requires the insurer to “segregate” payments for the coverage from the insurance plan’s premiums. So it creates an accounting gimmick to claim that even though the coverage is there, someone else is paying. Ultimately, accounting gimmicks are just that: gimmicks. And regardless, not “paying” for coverage that a group morally objects to does not resolve their moral objection. Many groups also object to being the cause of the immoral coverage. That is what the final rule makes them do anyway.

CHA: Self-insured plan administrators can choose not to provide the coverage?

FALSE. The idea that “it’s not you doing it, it’s your insurer” runs into a brick wall when the religious group acts as its own insurance company, by “self-insuring.” The administration didn’t solve this problem, it ignored it.

The final rule says a self-insured religious group must sign a paper that contractually and legally designates someone else to provide the contraceptive coverage. That someone else is called a “third party administrator.” He isn’t an insurance company, necessarily–he just handles the paperwork when employees submit health costs and ask for reimbursement.wonka1

So point one: the final rule directly causes self-insured entities to “contract for” coverage of objectionable items. It literally forces them to sign language that contractually designates the TPA to go out and get the objectionable coverage. Tellingly, the final rule declares that “after” doing so, its mantra is still true, that religious groups won’t have to contract for the coverage. So after I force you to violate your conscience, I won’t do it again. Lovely.

Second, CHA simply misstates the law when it declares that “There is no legal requirement that a TPA accept this role” to go out and get coverage for the objectionable items. The contractual designation that religious groups sign is intended precisely to legally bind the TPA to do this. The final rule admits it, too. But the final rule says, basically, that TPAs don’t have to do this in the big picture because they could always quit their jobs: they could refuse to do any work at all for a religious group. The final rule repeats this twice.

Thanks a lot. The final rule basically makes self-insured religious groups pariahs in the self-insurance market, by law, but says who cares, you shouldn’t be self insuring in the first place. And CHA is OK with this for its self-insured entities.

CHA: Employees can opt out of objectionable coverage?

FALSE. This might be the most transparently dismissive part of the CHA memo. CHA itself asked the administration to let employees opt-out of the objectionable coverage if they don’t want themselves or their spouses or daughters to get free coverage of early-abortion drugs, contraceptives and sterilizations. The administration simply said no. And CHA’s response is, well nevermind.

The administration’s (and CHA’s) rationale for refusing an opt-out is the idea that the payments for these items won’t come from another insurance plan, it will come from the employer’s own insurance company, and employees can simply decline to buy IUD’s and tubal ligations, so they don’t need an opt out.cat1

This reasoning insults the entire attempt to respect religious objections. The point of this whole debate is that people don’t just object to using these items themselves, they object to having it covered for free, especially in connection to their own insurance plan, especially for their own daughters. And the administration’s response to this is nothing at all. You, employee, even if you work at a Catholic organization so your health insurance won’t give your daughters free sterilizations, you will still get coverage guaranteeing those payments. You won’t even get it as a part of a separate plan. It’s from the insurance company whose plan you are participating in. Tough luck.

_Abyssinia · Jul 10, 2013