Letter to the Editor: Response lacking
BY Philip Creider, Broken Arrow
Wednesday, September 26, 2012
9/26/12 at 3:06 AM
Your Sept. 13 article regarding the Green family's lawsuit involving the Health and Human Services mandate misrepresented the current reality regarding the Obama administration's supposed accommodation for concerns raised by churches. Many churches, particularly the Catholic Church, have deemed the administration's response as lacking in substance.
Catholic Church leadership continues to argue that, while the administration says that employees will not pay an additional charge for the coverage, ultimately, the funds to pay for it must come from the premium dollars of the employers and employees. When these organizations provide any health coverage to their employees, that will be the trigger for having the objectionable coverage provided "automatically" to all these employees and their dependents - even if both employer and employee object to it.
Like the Green family's company plan, most Catholic Church plans are either partially or fully self-insured plans.
The Catholic Church's dissatisfaction with the administration's response is evidenced most clearly by the fact that more than 50 Catholic dioceses and organizations are participating in lawsuits similar to the one filed by the Green family.
Most disconcerting is that, in order for the Catholic Church to achieve an exemption to the mandate, as stipulated by HHS and the administration, it must first fire its non-Catholic employees, deny non-Catholic children enrollment into its schools and no longer provide any charitable services to non-Catholics. Thus, religious organizations dedicated to serving people of other faiths are being instructed by the administration to discard this virtue.
Letters to the editor are encouraged. Send letters to letters@tulsaworld.com.
