The Bishops continue their tireless efforts to impose their viciously obscurantist godbothering views on all of us. They report it proudly on their episcopal website, because they think they are morally better than the rest of us. They are so wrong about that.
The chairman of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on Pro-Life Activities wrote to members of the House of Representatives to support the “Abortion Insurance Full Disclosure Act” (H.R. 3279), to address one part of the abortion-related problem in the Affordable Care Act (ACA).
The House of Representatives ought not to be beholden to the US CCB. It ought to be entirely independent of them.
In his Nov. 1 letter, Cardinal Seán O’Malley, Archbishop of Boston, wrote: “Under the ACA, unless state law requires otherwise, each insurer may choose whether to include elective abortions in the health plans it offers on a state health exchange. If the insurer does cover such abortions, the overall health plan may still receive federal tax subsidies; and every enrollee — regardless of age, sex, or conscientious objection – must make a separate payment solely to cover other enrollees’ abortions. This violates the policies governing all other federal health programs. In no other program may federal funds subsidize any part of a health plan that covers such abortions; and nowhere else does the federal government forbid insurers to allow an ‘opt-out’ from such coverage on conscience grounds.”
Because it’s not necessary to forbid it, because it’s not an issue, because it’s only women’s reproductive services that are treated as a special case demanding bishops’ meddling and obstacle-creating.
Citing a 2009 poll, Cardinal O’Malley said most Americans, particularly most women, do not want abortion coverage in their health plans.
Cardinal O’Malley is an expert on what women want? I don’t think so.
If I were an insurance company official, I would have no problem with this. Creating a separate policy would be easy. And I would bill those who want abortion. I would set that additional fee as a $1.00 credit. Abortion costs less than healthy delivery, so the change should be a credit, not a cost. And I would make that low (only a token $1.00), to reduce the complaints that pro-life people were being charged more for their religion. Hmm, maybe that credit should be only $0.01).
Now how would the bishops word their complaint?
Yet another example of theists trying to impose their cult’s dogma on non-members.
I should probably check on that poll that says that a majority of American women don’t want to have abortion coverage in their policies, but I have this sneaking suspicion that the Bish is either misreporting it or it was a poorly done poll.
In polling commissioned by the USCCB – no data cited in the letter, no link to the poll. Nada. Can’t tell if it is a pre-selected population of pro-lifers, or if it was truly a population properly selected that the respondents refused to answer when they found it who was commissioning it.
Like 86,4% of all statistics, it probably comes from the same
sourcesewers. Dagnabb autocorrupt!