Hours after calling the Obama administration's contraceptives compromise a "first step," the Catholic bishops said Friday night they have "two serious objections" to the new policy and will fight its enactment.
First, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops said the administration?s plan still includes a ?nationwide mandate of insurance coverage of sterilization and contraception, including some abortifacients.?
Continue Reading?This is both unsupported in the law and remains a grave moral concern,? the bishops said in their statement. ?We cannot fail to reiterate this, even as so many would focus exclusively on the question of religious liberty.
And while Obama?s new plan allows religious-affiliated employers to refrain from paying for contraceptive coverage ? insurers would be obligated to provide the coverage for free ? the bishops said the change doesn?t go far enough.
?It would still mandate that all insurers must include coverage for the objectionable services in all the policies they would write,? the bishops said. ?At this point, it would appear that self-insuring religious employers, and religious insurance companies, are not exempt from this mandate.?
The bishops said the president?s plan will require ?careful moral analysis? and may still change.
But they made it clear that a ?lack of clear protection for key stakeholders ? for self-insured religious employers; for religious and secular for-profit employers; for secular nonprofit employers; for religious insurers; and for individuals ? is unacceptable and must be corrected. And in the case where the employee and insurer agree to add the objectionable coverage, that coverage is still provided as a part of the objecting employer's plan, financed in the same way as the rest of the coverage offered by the objecting employer. This, too, raises serious moral concerns.?
The Obama administration?s original policy exempted only churches from requirements to cover contraceptives in their health insurance plans. After heavy criticism from the bishops and others, the White House released its new plan Friday morning. The bishops said they were first notified of the plan Friday morning, shortly before President Barack Obama's announcement.
This article first appeared on POLITICO Pro at 7:45 a.m. on Feb. 11, 2012.
cain velasquez dos santos waterboarding boxing news boxing andy dalton corporal kelsey de santis
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.