On The Eighth Day He Said “Let There Be Co-Pays And Forms but No Contraception”

In all the talk of health care reform many of the other concerns regarding health plans seem to get pushed to the back burner. Should religious employers be allowed to disallow specific health procedures and products from being purchased under the insurance plans they provide to their employees? I see the merits of the arguments of religious entities that do not want their plans to cross their boundaries of morality. Although I do understand the arguments it does not make their claim correct.

Patrick Reilly of the Cardinal Newman Society argued in the Wall Street Journal on Friday that federal authorities are encroaching on the “religious liberty of Catholic’s” by not allowing religious employers to remove access to contraception in employee health care compensation. Reilly writes:

“In 2007, eight faculty members filed a complaint against Belmont Abbey College in Belmont, N.C., claiming that the school's decision to exclude prescription contraceptives from its health-care plan was discriminatory against women. ‘As a Roman Catholic institution, Belmont Abbey College is not able to and will not offer nor subsidize medical services that contradict the clear teaching of the Catholic Church,’ said the college's president, William Thierfelder, at the time.”

I will not take issue with the idea that the college is unable to provide certain medical procedures. Except to say they can but refuse. The real issue is the idea that Abbey College is subsidizing medical services at all. The benefit of health insurance provided by an employer to an employee is characterized as non-wage compensation. It is well accepted theory in labor economics that without a health insurance benefit, direct pecuniary wages would rise an amount relative to the value of the health insurance benefit. For the college’s and Reilly’s argument to hold up against the least bit of scrutiny it would need to be acceptable that a religious employer can have the right to dictate to an employee what can be purchased with compensation, either direct wage or benefit compensation.

Much of the rhetoric in the health care reform debate includes images of government or insurance company bureaucrats looking over the shoulders of doctors and patients. Both sides argue that no one should get between you and your doctor and by extension the treatment that you both feel is necessary. Reilly’s argument puts religious authority in the exam room as well. It seems awfully unfair that Catholic morality would try to influence a patient’s access health care. Do employees need to discard their own conception of morals to work at religious institutions? That exam room is getting awfully crowded. Sphere: Related Content