Friday, December 23, 2016

What Comes Next… Banning Insurance Coverage For AIDS/HIV?

When you give religious exception for healthcare insurance where do you draw line?
Religious organizations want an exception for our healthcare.
Catholic Benefits Association blasts federal transgender regulation
Catholic News Service
By Mark Pattison
December 22, 2016

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- The Catholic Benefits Association, which is made up of Catholic employers nationwide, has come out against a federal regulation scheduled to take effect Jan. 1 that redefines "sex" for anti-discrimination purposes to include sexual orientation and gender identity.

The regulation from the Department of Health and Human Services requires that coverage in group health plans "include coverage for gender transition services, hormonal treatments, counseling and a host of surgeries that would remove or transforms the sexual organs of men or women transitioning to the other gender," said Martin Nussbaum, general counsel for the association, who called it an "extreme rule."

"Clearly these things are contrary to Catholic doctrine and values, and part of what creates the problem for Catholic organizations," he said during a Dec. 21 teleconference spelling out the regulation and its potential effects.

The Oklahoma City-based Catholic Benefits Association is made up of Catholic dioceses, hospitals, school systems, religious orders and other entities that offer their employees insurance and benefit programs that adhere to Catholic teaching.
So tell me how do you pick what exemption to hand out? Will there be a religious test… will they have to show where it is outlawed in your tenants where it is banned?

Will a white supremacist church be allowed to not cover sickle cell disease? Would a Jewish synagogue be able to refuse to cover Trichinosis? Would a religion be allowed to bar treatment for STDs? What about health coverage for the child of an unmarried couple, could a religious order not allow coverage for the child of an employee?

You open a whole can of worms when you start giving religious exemptions for healthcare coverage.

1 comment:

  1. Having been in a Catholic 'hospital' during a medical emergency and hearing "we don't treat their kind here" already this change is well past due. To revert to that vile phrase again, only leads to death.

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