Posted in News, on June 28th, 2012

U.S. Supreme Court upholds health care law; bishops cite objections

The United States Supreme court today upheld much of the health care reform act, especially the provision that mandates every American to purchase health care insurance.

The 5-4 ruling of the justices affirms health care coverage for an estimated 30 million Americans, but did not remedy some provisions that the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) finds most troubling.

The mandate for Catholic organizations to provide coverage for contraception and sterilization, with little alternative for conscience exemption, was not specifically resolved in the ruling.

In a statement July 28, the USCCB said that for “nearly a century” Catholic bishops have called for “comprehensive health care reform to ensure access to life-affirming health care for all, especially the poorest and the most vulnerable.”

The bishops’ conference opposed three major provisions of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), as the health care reform law is known.

• The law allows federal funding to pay for abortions and for plans that cover abortions, which the statement said “contradict(s) longstanding federal policy.” It added that the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has already approved “”high risk’ insurance pools that would have covered abortion.”

• Language for “essential conscience protection” is not included in the law, the statement said. The lack of conscience protection for the law’s mandates is apparent in HHS’s “preventive services mandate, which forces religious and other employers to cover sterilization and contraception, including abortifacient drugs,” the statement said.

• Immigrant workers and their families are not treated fairly by the law, according to the statement. “ACA leaves them worse off by not allowing them to purchase health coverage in the new exchanges created under the law, even if they use their own money.”

The U.S. bishops have not joins in some efforts to repeal the ACA. But the high court’s decision on President Barack Obama’s signature initiative as president “neither diminishes the moral imperative to ensure decent health care for all, nor eliminates the need to correct the fundamental flaws” that the bishops’ identified, according to their statement.

“We therefore continue to urge Congress to pass, and the Administration to sign, legislation to fix those flaws,” it said.

— Matthew Gambino

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2 Responses

1. I agree with much of what the Bishop’s say about the changes needed to the Affordable HealthCare law but I find it hard to believe that Congress will act on anything the Bishop’s say since this is the group who are silent about the changes needed in the church and how they have allowed people like Cardinal Law to escape US justice. Joe Gable

   By: Joe Gable on June 29, 2012 at 5:22 am

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2. Now that SCOTUS has called Obama care for what it is: a tax that opens up another way out of the religious mandate. If it is not repealed by the republicans or if somehow it is declared constitutional, the fact that it is a tax and since the Church is tax exempt, then perhaps the Church cannot be penalized for not providing health insurance. The Church could then drop the coverage and give their employees a wage increase from what they used to spend on insurance so they could use the money to buy their own health insurance.

   By: Deagin on July 1, 2012 at 3:49 pm

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