President Obama on Friday sought to placate religious groups upset over a new federal rule that requires them to offer birth control for their employees free of charge.
The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) and others vehemently opposed the original Department of Health & Human Services mandate, saying they would be forced to violate their beliefs by paying for birth control. While churches are exempt under the rule, Catholic-run charities, hospitals, and schools are not.
The new, altered rule the President pushed Friday would instead put the burden on the insurer. Insurers would be required to offer birth control free to female employees of those groups so the religious organization could avoid offering it.
“Under the rule, women will still have access to free preventive care that includes contraceptive service no matter where they work,” Obama said. “That core principle remains.”
Bishop Robert Guglielmone, who oversees the Catholic Diocese of Charleston (which includes all Catholic parishes in South Carolina), said it was a better plan but added he still had questions about it. For example, he said there were several dioceses in the United States that self-insured and he was not certain how they would be covered under the new mandate. He also questioned if insurers would raise their premiums to cover the service– meaning the Church would be paying for it in a de facto manner.
“It’s forcing the Church to do something that would be in opposition to our moral commitments and moral beliefs,” he told South Carolina Radio Network.
Meanwhile, Brandi Ellison of the Columbia reproductive advocacy group New Morning Foundation said while she understood religious freedoms, all women should have access to birth control services.
“Someone else’s conscience standing in the way of someone receiving health care is just unacceptable,” she said.
She said Obama’s new proposal was a positive step, “The burden is no longer on the employer. It’s actually the insurance company that has to offer the full range of services.”
Guglielmone said part of the reason that bishops were so upset when the new rules came down two weeks ago was because they had been caught off-guard. “The president of the USCCB, in a meeting with (President Obama), was given assurances that the rights of religious organizations would be respected,” he said, “In a sense, we feel that promise was not fulfilled in a way that we understood at the time.”
The new rules are part of the health care reform law passed two years ago. While the new rule takes effect immediately, the Health & Human Services officials say they will not enforce it until August 2013 so they can work out the details.
