A "proposed rule" by the Department of Health and Human Services lets female employees of for-profit businesses, like Hobby Lobby, obtain birth control directly from their insurer, at no extra cost, if their boss opts out of covering the service in the company's insurance plan for religious reasons.
The move extends an accommodation that already exists for non-profit organizations, which are allowed to refuse to cover for birth control. In short, the religious owners can pass the cost on to the insurer so that they're no longer complicit in what they view as sin.
The Supreme Court ruled in June that owners of closely held for-profit corporations cannot be required, under Obamacare, to cover emergency contraception like Plan B, Ella and two types of IUDs if it violates their sincerely-held religious belief. The HHS move is a workaround to that ruling.
So that's actually great news, and insurance companies will be thrilled, because contraception is a fraction of the cost of neonatal services, pregnancy complications, and childbirth. This is outstanding, and I hope these rulesgo into effect as soon as possible so that employees of religious companies can go back to using science to do things.
This is going to help a lot of people, and I'm glad I have good news for once in the Friday news dump slot.
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3 comments:
This is indeed good news, if tempered by the sobering realization that this kind of bullshit workaround shouldn't have been necessary in the first place.
Hobby Lobby should pay the full cost (from birth to 18) of every child that an employee has because they did not have birth control. If that was the case, I bet their religious beliefs would not be so important to them.
Definitely good news. Shall we take wagers as to how long it takes for religious conservatives to find objections to it?
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