Bay 12 Games Forum

Yes and no. The kerfluffle was over whether or not non-church religious institutions could opt out of insurance coverage for contraception for their employees. There was already an exemption in the law as written for churches. But this language did not cover religious-funded institutions which are not churches, such as schools and hospitals. There's nothing about Federal funding involved AFAIK.

So effectively, this meant that when Sacred Heart hospital buys insurance coverage for its employees, it cannot tell the insurance company "Oh, and btw...we don't want any birth control coverage for our employees, even though it's part of the package we bought."

There is actually nothing preventing a private insurance company from creating an insurance package which doesn't cover contraception and selling that to their Catholic clients, if there's such a big demand. OMG....a market solution! Which Republicans are quite willing to ignore if it makes for good political theater.

Also ignores the fact that some 90% of American Catholic women report using birth control. That's one big area where American Catholics have long been willing to tell the Pope to fuck off in comparison to Europeans. What the Church doesn't like is that its own employees (who may not be Catholics themselves, mind you) can tell them to fuck off, not just lay parishoners.

Of course, a lot of this is dog-whistling. Privately, the argument is that "if they can do this with contraception, they can do it with abortion". So the specter of "government-mandated abortion coverage" is being used to drum up support among the base without actually invoking something so patently ridiculous out in the open. Problem being, the approach is utterly tone-deaf and the image that's resulted is "OMG Republicans want to ban condoms". Which is also totally wrong, but hey...it's an image they helped create themeselves.

Quote from: Frumple on March 04, 2012, 12:01:28 pm

Thanks Red, that was exactly th'clarification I was looking for. Definitely doesn't look like the horrific restriction of religious practice it seems to be getting spun as

Yeah, really. It's not that they're forced to pay for contraception (which is how it's being spun), it's that they're being prevented from opting out of the benefit if it's part of the plan they purchase. And honestly, most insurance plans DON'T cover birth control to begin with. I don't see the insurance companies lining up to say, "Welp, sorry but our hands are tied. We INSIST on giving you birth control coverage." I'm sure some diocese somewhere will make the asshat choice to drop insurance coverage altogether, so that it can be spun as "Obama and those damn liberals are so hellbent on getting taxpayer-funded condoms into the hands of our children that they'd rather see people go WITHOUT coverage than allow the religious exemption". 

And the attempted amendment that the GOP tried to pass was just idiotic. It would have allowed ANY employer to opt-out of paying for coverage of ANY type of benefit that they had "a religious or moral objection to".

Boss is a Jehovah's Witness and doesn't believe in blood transfusions? Okay, you'll have to pay for that yourself.
Boss is Christian Scientist and doesn't beieve in medicine period?? You're screwed.
Get cancer and the boss doesn't want to have to pay increasing premiums because your long-term care is being penalized by the insurance company? He can just claim he has a "moral objection" to chemotherapy.

It would have been a giant can of worms. Thankfully, there were enough Republicans that also realized this and voted it down. This isn't a First Amendment issue. It isn't even a speech issue. It's a labor rights issue. Employees are not the property of their employer. And the fact that employers already make major decisions about healthcare coverage when they choose what plans to offer. The counterargument seems to boil down to, "If your employer pays your insurance premiums, they get to decide. Money talks."