Health Care Reform Simplified: What Professionals in Medicine, Government, Insurance, and Business Need to Know by Dave Parks

Author:Dave Parks [Parks, Dave]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781430248965
Publisher: Apress
Published: 2012-09-26T04:00:00+00:00

Addition of Birth Control to Preventive Care Creates Controversy

In August 2011, the US Department of Health and Human Services issued an interim final rule expanding the list of preventive care services that insurers must offer to women on policies that are new or renewing after August 1, 2012. The most controversial addition was a requirement that most insurers add contraceptive services without co-pay for women policyholders. It exempted some religious organizations but not all, particularly those with missions not entirely religious, such as hospitals.

Religious groups objected. Federal officials attempted to craft a compromise that would have had insurance companies provide birth control services, and allow all religious institutions to opt out, essentially funneling premiums payments and coverage through insurers. It extended the deadline for coverage to August 1, 2013. Some leaders in the Catholic Church still felt the rule implied tacit approval on the Church’s part to provide birth control services. To complicate things further, some religious institutions self-insure, which means they would not have an insurance company to act as a conduit for providing birth control services.

On May 21, 2012, forty-three leading Catholic institutions in eight states filed a lawsuit claiming that the rule infringed upon religious liberty and was unconstitutional. Although they had been working on a compromise with the federal government, there was rising concern among Catholic institutions about the approaching of August 1, 2013, deadline to have the new preventive services for women in place. So the lawsuit was filed.

On one hand, the Catholic Church is saying it shouldn’t be required to do something that violates tenets of its faith. On the other hand, federal health officials are saying that all women should have a right to birth control without co-pays as part of a package of preventive care services, and many states already require such coverage.

Other preventive services added for women in August 2011 included yearly wellness visits, breastfeeding equipment, and screening for gestational diabetes, domestic abuse, HPV, and HIV.

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