The HHS Mandate- What It Is and Why YOU Should Care

Isn't it funny...the people who tell the Catholic Church to stay out of their bedrooms are the same people who want the Church to pay for the paraphernalia for what they are doing in their bedrooms.  

This is NOT about an employer forcing an employee to do anything. The items in question are easily and cheaply available. This is about the government forcing employers to provide free to their employees items which are contrary to their deeply- held religious beliefs. We are talking about drugs that kill unborn children ( which is one way hormone-based contraception works; abortion drugs are mega-doses of hormonal contraceptives). We are talking about hormonal contraceptives which are considered Class One carcinogens by the World Health Organization's International Agency for Research on Cancer. ( look toward the bottom of page 2 )
They include:
Estrogen therapy, postmenopausal
Estrogen-progestogen menopausal therapy (combined)
Estrogen-progestogen oral contraceptives

Yeah.... Cancer-causing drugs really sound like health care.....

In January, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) issued a mandate under the Affordable Care Act (also known as “Obamacare”) that requires all employer health plans to provide free contraceptives, sterilizations and abortion-inducing drugs, regardless of any moral or religious objections.  

From: http://standupforreligiousfreedom.com/docs/HHSMandateFactSheet.pdf

This means that every single employer- all of them- will be REQUIRED to offer health insurance coverage that covers contraceptives, sterilizations and abortion-inducing drugs at ZERO cost to employees. 

The religious exemption that President Obama promised? That only covers employers that meet ALL of the following conditions:

1. EMPLOY primarily members of their own faith
2. SERVE primarily members of their own faith
3. EXIST primarily to spread their own faith
4. NON-PROFIT STATUS per the IRS

As Archbishop Charles J. Chaput (shaa-PEW) so wisely noted, "Under this view, Jesus and his disciples would have been deemed not religious enough."

This means that the many non-Catholic employees of Catholic Hospitals, schools, parishes, and charities would be at risk for losing their jobs.

Can you imagine needing to present your baptismal certificate to be treated in the ER of a Catholic hospital?

But- WAIT- since the purpose of a hospital is not to spread the faith, IT DOESN'T QUALIFY as a religious institution!

What are the consequences if a religious institution does not qualify under the exemption rules and refuses to provide the required coverage? The fine is $100 PER DAY, PER EMPLOYEE. That's right $36,500 a year per employee.

For doing what is right.

As a side note, Obamacare has no provisions to add any doctors for the 30 million new covered patients (still leaving 26 million without any insurance coverage), but will add thousands of  IRS agents to collect those fines!

It's only fair, according to some....
According to Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, however, the Obamacare mandate is not a tax, although she told CNN the IRS would be the most effective enforcer.

“This is a penalty that will be assessed on the tax return if you choose to roll the dice and make us all pay for your being irresponsible and increase all of our health care costs,” she told Wolf Blitzer. “We’re not going to tolerate that any more in America. You have to be responsible and you have to pay a penalty if you choose not to be,” she warned.

Sigh. 

Now, you may say, in February, the President announced an 'accommodation' for religious groups! Do you know what is was? The EMPLOYER would not pay for the above-mentioned-unacceptable-items, but the INSURANCE companies will!  Isn't that nice!!

But what about the self-insured Catholic employer- the Diocese of Toledo, for example? Well, since they ARE the insurer, they have to pay! 

The most eloquent and easy-to-understand explanation I have seen belongs to Bishop William Lori of Bridgeport, CT, who testified before the House Committee on Oversight and Reform. It is below in its entirety, and well worth your time to read it.

Here’s Bishop Lori’s testimony as submitted to the Committee:

For my testimony today, I would like to tell a story. Let’s call it, “The Parable of the Kosher Deli.”

Once upon a time, a new law is proposed, so that any business that serves food must serve pork. There is a narrow exception for kosher catering halls attached to synagogues, since they serve mostly members of that synagogue, but kosher delicatessens are still subject to the mandate.

The Orthodox Jewish community—whose members run kosher delis and many other restaurants and grocers besides—expresses its outrage at the new government mandate. And they are joined by others who have no problem eating pork—not just the many Jews who eat pork, but people of all faiths—because these others recognize the threat to the principle of religious liberty. They recognize as well the practical impact of the damage to that principle. They know that, if the mandate stands, they might be the next ones forced—under threat of severe government sanction—to violate their most deeply held beliefs, especially their unpopular beliefs.

Meanwhile, those who support the mandate respond, “But pork is good for you. It is, after all, the other white meat.” Other supporters add, “So many Jews eat pork, and those who don’t should just get with the times.” Still others say, “Those Orthodox are just trying to impose their beliefs on everyone else.”

But in our hypothetical, those arguments fail in the public debate, because people widely recognize the following.

First, although people may reasonably debate whether pork is good for you, that’s not the question posed by the nationwide pork mandate. Instead, the mandate generates the question whether people who believe—even if they believe in error—that pork is not good for you, should be forced by government to serve pork within their very own institutions. In a nation committed to religious liberty and diversity, the answer, of course, is no.

Second, the fact that some (or even most) Jews eat pork is simply irrelevant.

The fact remains that some Jews do not—and they do not out of their most deeply held religious convictions. Does the fact that large majorities in society—even large majorities within the protesting religious community—reject a particular religious belief make it permissible for the government to weigh in on one side of that dispute? Does it allow government to punish that minority belief with its coercive power? In a nation committed to religious liberty and diversity, the answer, of course, is no.

Third, the charge that the Orthodox Jews are imposing their beliefs on others has it exactly backwards. Again, the question generated by a government mandate is whether the government will impose its belief that eating pork is good on objecting Orthodox Jews.

 Meanwhile, there is no imposition at all on the freedom of those who want to eat pork. That is, they are subject to no government interference at all in their choice to eat pork, and pork is ubiquitous and cheap, available at the overwhelming majority of restaurants and grocers. Indeed, some pork producers and retailers, and even the government itself, are so eager to promote the eating of pork, that they sometimes give pork away for free.

In this context, the question is this: can a customer come to a kosher deli, demand to be served a ham sandwich, and if refused, bring down severe government sanction on the deli. In a nation committed to religious liberty and diversity, the answer, of course, is no.

So in our hypothetical story, because the hypothetical nation is indeed committed to religious liberty and diversity, these arguments carry the day.

In response, those proposing the new law claim to hear and understand the concerns of kosher deli owners, and offer them a new “accommodation.” You are free to call yourself a kosher deli; you are free not to place ham sandwiches on your menu; you are free not to be the person to prepare the sandwich and hand it over the counter to the customer. But we will force your meat supplier to set up a kiosk on your premises, and to offer, prepare, and serve ham sandwiches to all of your customers, free of charge to them.

And when you get your monthly bill from your meat supplier, it will include the cost of any of the “free” ham sandwiches that your customers may accept. And you will, of course, be required to pay that bill.

Some who supported the deli owners initially began to celebrate the fact that ham sandwiches didn’t need to be on the menu, and didn’t need to be prepared or served by the deli itself. But on closer examination, they noticed three troubling things. First, all kosher delis will still be forced to pay for the ham sandwiches.

Second, many of the kosher delis’ meat suppliers, themselves, are forbidden in conscience from offering, preparing, or serving pork to anyone. Third, there are many kosher delis that are their own meat supplier, so the mandate to offer, prepare, and serve the ham sandwich still falls on them.

This story has a happy ending. The government recognized that it is absurd for someone to come into a kosher deli and demand a ham sandwich; that it is beyond absurd for that private demand to be backed with the coercive power of the state; that it is downright surreal to apply this coercive power when the customer can get the same sandwich cheaply, or even free, just a few doors down.

The question before the United States government—right now—is whether the story of our own Church institutions that serve the public, and that are threatened by the HHS mandate, will end happily too. Will our nation continue to be one committed to religious liberty and diversity? We urge, in the strongest possible terms, that the answer must be yes. We urge you, in the strongest possible terms, to answer the same way.

Thank you for your attention.

******

Wasn't that great? So....should a religious employer- or any employer for that matter- be required to have its health insurance pay for services that are morally unacceptable to the employer?

The answer is a resounding NO.

Not in a free country.

Not in a country which has the First Freedom listed in its Constitution, FREEDOM OF RELIGION.

Not in America.

Ever.