Catholics who own businesses in the United States are pondering how to get around a health insurance dilemma caused by a new federal mandate.
The mandate, introduced by President Barack Obama, requires their health insurance plans to cover contraception, sterilisation and abortion drugs. It came into effect for secular employers on August 1, but religious employers remain exempt for a year.
Whenever their health insurance plan comes up for renewal, these employers must prove their workers have access to birth control or they could face fines of $US100 per employee per day.
Meanwhile, a growing number of Catholic employers have filed legal challenges to the mandate, and the National Catholic Bioethics Center has issued a document outlining the moral options.
In this document, the centre’s ethicists reject the option of embracing the contraception mandate as a morally illicit choice.
They offer two alternatives — “Provide morally non-objectionable coverage” or “drop all coverage” — plus a “last resort” option defined as “temporary compliance with the mandate, coupled with active opposition by all reasonable and legal means available”.
Their answer to the health insurance dilemma is: “Dropping all coverage appears to be the most morally sound approach.”
However, they say, from January 2014 an employer with more than 50 full-time employees could incur a penalty of about $US2000 per employee per year beyond the first 30 full-time employees not offered a health plan — as well as possible legal action by employees and the federal government.
In addition, they add, the principles of stewardship and justice require employers to care for their employees and, in the US, this care typically includes health insurance.
“A sudden change in this approach could leave many employees and their families uninsured or underinsured, with little time to adjust and find affordable, quality alternatives,” the ethicists say.
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Image: WAMU