Obama Does Not Widen Religious Exemption for Contraceptive Mandate
The Obama administration announced today a small shift in an earlier position on who covers contraception, but observers are still voicing concerns over how his administration exempts religious groups.
Religious organizations will not have to provide or directly subsidize the cost of contraception or refer their employees to organizations that provide contraception, the administration announced. "Religious liberty will be protected, and a law that requires free preventive care will not discriminate against women," Obama said in a press conference. Rather, employers' insurance companies must offer contraception coverage to women directly, free of charge.
Pro-life groups released statements suggesting the shift was not enough. "The so-called one year delay last month was a clear slap in the face of religious groups, and this new proposal still requires religious entities that are not exempt as a church to subsidize and pay insurance companies so they can give free birth control to their employees," said Tony Perkins, Family Research Council president. "However, it won't be free, because the insurance companies will increase the premium and administrative costs to the employer."
A White House official told the Washington Post that under the policy, insurers will not be able to set premiums higher than it would have been without birth control.
Religious groups' initial concerns centered on two issues. In its August announcement, the administration required that religious employers that are not churches would have to cover certain contraceptives such as Plan B (or "the morning-after pill"). Groups also voiced concerns about the narrow religious exemption of churches, which was not changed under Obama's decision today.
Observers are still determining how the White House's announcement will impact various religious groups. For instance, it appears that for-profit religious companies will need to provide contraception. Remaining questions include whether faith-based insurance companies will be exempted from the mandate.
GuideStone, a Southern Baptist medical plan provider that covers about 200,000 people, pays benefits directly and does not use a third-party insurance company. "The President's statement today is an insulting affront illustrating a basic lack of understanding that this issue will not be solved by sleight of hand word game," said GuideStone's president O.S. Hawkins.
Also unclear is how the policy will impact religious organizations that are self-insured. White House officials said today in a call with religious leaders that the updated rule will apply to self-funded plans of religious nonprofits, but the details of how the rule will apply those plans will be worked out in the transition period.
"What are the actual contours? People are still trying to figure it out," said Stanley Carlson-Thies, president of the Institutional Religious Freedom Alliance. "Nobody that I've talked to says this is wonderful, a slam dunk, let's go home and have Thanksgiving early."
Religious leaders saw the ruling as a restriction on religious groups that could also set a poor precedent for future restrictions.
"I'm not sure if they've nailed it," said Galen Carey, vice president of government relations for the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE). "The definition of religious employers is very relevant to a number of issues, not just this specific case."
Several evangelicals, such as Albert Mohler, Jim Daly, and Chuck Colson suggested that the mandate was not just an issue for Catholics but a question of religious freedom.
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Joan Ludvik
I have to wonder what is really behind the churches aversion to allowing hormone tharapies to women while at the same time covering viagra for single men or even married men who's wives do not want sex. I wonder about the hipocracy of a church to delegate how an employee chooses to start a family while at the same time does not require and pay for a funeral and burial of any stillborn child or even miscarriage. If they truely believe in life at conception why do they not demand that death certificates be issued to any child who miscarries at any point after conception. Keep in mind this issue is only with the FOR PROFIT businesses the church runs not the actual church or charity orginazation.
Joan Ludvik
The real problem here is the exemption the churches have that allows them to be self insured. Ordinary corporations are no longer able to do this because self insuring puts the employee in the position of having to share their private medical records with the employer. It is our constitutional right to have privacy in our medical treatments. More than 25yrs ago I was put in theis position when Frito-lay- a division of Pepsico was self insured. I started tearing muscles and tendons and ligaments at work. I had to see the company approved doctor who never told me I had a condition called psoriatic arthritis and would not be able to do physical work anymore. I was forced out of my job and never got the treatment that would have allowed me to have a normal life. Self insuring allows an employer to make life decisions and medical decisions based on how it will affect their bottom line. No employer including a church should ever have the right to choreograph anybodys personal decisions
Carlos Ramirez Trevino
In spite of the fact that as citizens we should take advantage of the opportunity to participate in government and influence its course, have I misunderstood the meaning of Grace? Haven't we been saved by God's Grace and not by our efforts to conform society to our way of thinking or to the conduct we expect of the transformed? Has the church gotten too involved in politics? Is that part of the idolatrous apostasy? Are we getting too caught up in the affairs of this world, forgetting the cross that is set before us? Are we now depending on the law? What ever happened to Grace? I feel the church has become too closely identified with politics once again. If the Catholic Church was the 1st Empire, Evangelicals are quickly becoming the Second. Do we still have a Christ centered church?