Health insurers question Obama birth control plan

(Reuters) - Health insurers said on Friday they feared President Barack Obama had set a new precedent by making them responsible for providing free birth control to employees of religious groups as he sought to defuse an election-year landmine.

Obama on Friday announced the policy shift in an effort to accommodate religious organizations, such as Catholic hospitals and universities, whose leaders are outraged by a new rule that would have required them to offer free contraceptive coverage to employees.

Instead, the Obama administration ordered insurers to provide workers at religious-affiliated institutions with free family planning if they request it, without involving their employer at all. Insurance industry officials said the abrupt shift raised questions over how that requirement would be implemented.

"We are concerned about the precedent this proposed rule would set," said Robert Zirkelbach, spokesman for America's Health Insurance Plans, the industry's trade group. "As we learn more about how this rule would be operationalized, we will provide comments through the regulatory process."

Zirkelbach said insurers "have long offered contraceptive coverage to employers as part of comprehensive, preventive benefits that aim to improve patient health and reduce health care cost growth."

Employers who have signed on for such health plans in the past paid part of the cost of birth control prescriptions, while their employees also bore some of the expense through co-payments.

Aetna, the third-largest U.S. health insurer, said that it would comply with the policy but needed "to study the mechanics of this unprecedented decision before we can understand how it will be implemented and how it will impact our customers."

An Aetna spokeswoman said the company "did not have any direct input into the actual policy decisions that were made."

When asked about the insurer concerns, the White House cited a report from the U.S. Health and Human Services Department that estimates the costs of providing free birth control can be offset by reducing expenses associated with unintended pregnancies.

(Reporting by Lewis Krauskopf in New York, Additional reporting by Caren Bohan in Washington, Editing by Michele Gershberg, John Wallace and Matthew Lewis)

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Health mandate to include birth control

This is a great step forward for the health of all women

The Obama administration recently ruled that health insurance plans must include contraception among the preventive services available to women without deductibles or co-pays under the new health-care law [“Contraception mandate outrages religious groups,” Health, seattletimes.com, Feb. 3].

This decision does not force doctors to prescribe contraception, or a woman to use it. Instead, it makes contraception affordable for many women who otherwise would not be able to afford it. As a nurse, I know this is a great step forward for the health of all women.

Despite the fact that 98 percent of Catholic women use contraception, some in the religious community are demanding that the current exemption for churches and religious organizations be expanded to include colleges, hospitals and social service agencies. This would be a disastrous decision for women’s health.

This issue goes to the heart of the personal-health decisions a woman makes with her doctor and care team, not her employer. As a Catholic, my grandmother died giving birth to her eighth child in so many years, and my mother had 10 pregnancies within less than 12 years. With birth control, their pregnancies could have been spaced so as to minimize the extreme physical, emotional, financial and psychological toll placed upon our family.

As a nurse, I know the decision not to expand the exception was the right one — as a matter of public health, respect for individual conscience and simple fairness to Washington women and their families.

This politicalizing from the pulpit, however, is one of the reasons why I struggle with my Catholic faith.

— Mary McNaughton, registered nurse, Everett

This is a threat to our fundamental freedoms

The recent news about the Health and Human Services mandate gives one something to, shall we say, pause over. I find this move very interesting. For those of us who are disturbed by this mandate, the issue is not simply abortion; it is that our government, while arguing that it is defending a woman’s right to choose, this mandate is going to deny that same right of conscience to those of us, men and women, who believe that all life is sacred, from conception to natural death..

The government, according to our founding documents, lacks the legitimacy, or the power to do what is being threatened by the Health and Human Services Mandate. It does not have the competency to do so.

The disagreement between us in this matter is about much more than just the life issues. We disagree on fundamental Constitutional, democratic principles. The right of conscience applies to all moral, political and social justice issues, not just the life issues. That is why this is, and will continue to be, a legitimate debate, not a forgone conclusion.

This is not just a mandate, it is a mortal threat to fundamental freedoms. You give government this kind of power and you no longer live in a democracy.

— Daniel J. Doyle, Edmonds

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