Wheaton sues (abortively) to strike abortion drug mandate (which it obeyed as an Illinois state mandate)

The Southern Baptist Convention's Baptist Press and echoes like the North Carolina Biblical Reporter reported it last month when Illinois' Wheaton College joined Catholic groups in a lawsuit over an Affordable Care Act requirement that insurance plans cover birth control.

They have been silent about subsequent news that Wheaton cannot pursue this matter of evangelical conviction for a year because it has, perhaps since 2003, been providing insurance to faculty and staff that includes the contraceptive coverage over which it is in high legal dudgeon.

As Grant Gallico summarized it:

In order to qualify for safe harbor, a religious employer must not cover — or have recently covered — services it now wants to be exempt from covering. Duncan didn’t explain this on the call, but in paragraph 120 of Wheaton’s legal complaint (.pdf), you find this: “They currently provide coverage for certain contraceptives and inadvertently provided coverage for a short period after February 10, 2012 for other now-excluded contraceptives, making it impossible for Wheaton to make the required Safe Harbor certification.”

Sounds like Wheaton was paying for emergency contraception coverage for its employees — for how short a period it doesn’t say.

That brings us right up against the moral reasoning for Wheaton's thus far abortive legal action. When President Philip Ryken rejected the Obama administration's proposed accommodation exempting religious employers from paying for contraception coverage, while allowing employees to receive the coverage separately from the insurer, he said, “Any accommodation that still involves us in connection with an insurer that provides abortion services still, though indirectly, nevertheless implicates us morally in that action.”

But Wheaton's insurance coverage history apparently doesn't rise to that standard.

Gallico dug out the current source of Wheaton's coverage for faculty and staff and It's Blue Cross/BlueShield of Illinois:

And while Blue Cross pays for emergency contraception for thousands of enrollees who don’t work for Wheaton, it also covers an actual abortion drug — Mifeprex — which, the drug maker’s website points out, Blue Cross covers “to the same extent as surgical abortions.”

None of that fits neatly into the Southern Baptist narrative of Wheaton et al heroically resisting reduction of their freedom (although they are actually attacking their employees' freedom to make those decisions) of religion, but it still deserves to be reported.

Law professors oppose further 'compromise' on Obamacare contraception coverage

Attempts to extend the religious liberty exemption to deny women the health insurance coverage for contraception they are due under the Affordable Care Act are fundamentally misguided, argue 170 law professors from major law schools all over the country [.pdf]. In a letter to "President Obama and the Congressional Leadership," they write:

Today, the egalitarian notion that every American deserves to enjoy religious freedom is under attack from those who would cede employees’ religious-liberty rights to corporate executives and nonprofit directors. In this cramped and one-sided view of religious freedom, supervisors are entitled to decide, based on their religious sentiments, whether their employees will be permitted to enjoy essential health benefits without the slightest concern for their religious beliefs. In particular, advocates claim that the Constitution gives all employers the right to veto their employees’ health-insurance coverage of contraception.

This view, which is espoused by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and others, is both wrong as a matter of law and profoundly undemocratic. Nothing in our nation’s history or laws permits a boss to impose his or her religious views on non-consenting employees. Indeed, this nation was founded upon the basic principle that every individual – whether company president or assistant janitor – has an equal claim to religious freedom.

...

The federal government must continue to protect the rights of women who need insurance laws so that they may make reproductive choices consistent with their individual conscience. Religious freedom must not provide a justification to deprive women of legal rights they should enjoy as employees and citizens. To the contrary, the First Amendment specifically preserves space for their religious liberty, and secures their right to act as individuals who exercise their own conscience on matters pertaining to their faith, body, and health.

Further misguided compromise is an abbreviation of individual rights, not an extension of religious liberty.

Read the entire letter here [.pdf].

[H/T: Baptist Joint Committee For Religious Liberty]

CHA again steps forward to remind us of health reform's benefits

Sr. Carol Keehan, DC, President of the Catholic Health Association (CHA) reminds us that the Affordable Care Act is providing new or better insurance coverage to children, young adults, seniors and small business owners:

The Catholic health ministry worked hard to enact this law because it would defend life and human dignity, provide health care access to vulnerable persons and hard-working families and reflect the values of a fair and compassionate nation. In large measure, the law is already achieving these important goals.

Just a few examples of how provisions in the ACA are helping Americans right now:

• At least 3 million young adults (under the age of 26) have been able to stay on their parents’ insurance plan.
• Some 54 million people of all ages have received free or preventive services like mammograms, colonoscopies, physical exams and cholesterol screenings.
• At least 3.6 million seniors have saved $2.1 billion on their prescription drugs, an average of $600 per senior.
• More than 50,000 people with serious illnesses have obtained coverage through state high-risk plans put in place by ACA.
• Small businesses across the country have received tax credits to help offset the cost of providing coverage to their employees.

The law also includes funding for states to develop programs that assist pregnant and parenting women. The funds grant women access to a network of supportive services that can help them complete high school or postsecondary degrees and gain access to health care, child care, family housing and services for those who are victims of domestic or sexual violence .The ACA’s provisions for pregnant and parenting women have often been lost in the clutter of coverage but represent pro-life policies that CHA strongly supported as the law was being written.

In 2014, additional parts of the law will take effect, beginning with state-based health insurance exchanges where individuals and small businesses will be able to shop for affordable health insurance policies. Those who qualify for subsidies will receive help paying premium costs. Medicaid will expand to cover more people who do not currently qualify for the program but also can’t afford insurance on their own.

For low-income families, and for the hospitals and other providers that treat them, Medicaid is a lifeline – a crucial program that connects vulnerable persons with the medical and preventive care they need.

These benefits are for the CHA, and were from the beginning intended to be, a reflection of Catholic religious values:

In 2007, CHA collaborated with our members across the country to develop a set of principles outlining our expectations for health reform. That document, “Our Vision for U.S. Health Care,” drew inspiration from Catholic social teaching and named the core values of human dignity, concern for the poor and vulnerable, justice, the common good and stewardship as the optimal foundation of a system that “creates and sustains a strong, healthy national community.”

The document included six principles for a smart and equitable health care system, starting with 100% access, and it became an advocacy tool for CHA and our members. In 2010, we published an updated version of the document, “Realizing Our Vision for U.S. Health Care” to show how the ACA corresponds with most of the expectations we had named.

This is in refreshing contrast with those among the Catholic Bishops and evangelical protestants who have been busy trying to cripple health reform, rather than celebrating its benefits.

[H/T dotCommonweal]