Clash of Cultures

Over the past several weeks the Culture of Death and the Culture of Life have faced off in a battle of wills and determination.  The Obama administration is determined to require every employer to provide access to contraceptives, abortion-inducing drugs (the morning after-pill), and surgical sterilization.   Having reneged on the executive order to provide a strong “conscience clause,” the president refuses to broaden the religious exemption to include Catholic schools, hospitals, and other social service organizations.   After a firestorm of protests from the US Catholic Bishops and many other religious organizations concerned that our First Amendment rights are being abrogated, the president has now come up with the idea that every insurer must provide these services free of charge so that religious organizations can say they are not paying for things they find morally abhorrent. 

What the president doesn’t seem to realize (where are his advisors?) is that almost every employer in the country who has more than a couple hundred employees, does not purchase health insurance, they self-fund their health plans.  Self-Funded Insurance Plans (SFIPs) have been common practice for decades as a means of giving the employer more control over benefit plan design, and for lowering cost by avoiding insurance charges and premium taxes.  Most people are unaware of this practice because third party administrators (TPAs) and insurance companies administer these plans on behalf of the employer.  Under these arrangements, it is the employers’ money paying for the health care, not an insurer.  When a check is issued to pay for health services, the name of the check is the employer’s, not the insurer.   More often than not, the money comes from the employer’s bank account not the insurer or third party administrator.

So despite what the president and the secretary of HHS have said, the ruling will now result in Catholic employers cutting checks to pay for contraceptives, abortion-inducing drugs and surgical sterilizations.  If a woman obtains these services from Planned Parenthood, a check from the Catholic employer’s account will be cut to pay for it.   So you can see why the Catholic Bishops are outraged and adamantly refuse to comply with this order. 

What we’re seeing here is the Culture of Life refusing to be bullied by the Culture of Death.  In his announcement last week, President Obama used the word “discrimination” to describe the Church’s decision to refuse to provide “preventive health care service for women.”   Ironic isn’t it that the Culture of Death views the Culture of Life as discriminatory when the former endorses and funds the willful and brutal murder of unborn children, and the latter is motivated by an ardent belief in the inherent dignity of every human being, including the unborn?

The line has been drawn.  Bishops have issued letters read at most churches these past two weeks, denouncing the decision by the Obama administration as a clear violation of the First Amendment.  Pastors are urging parishioners to call or write their elected representatives, and ask them to support the Respect for Rights of Conscience Act in Congress.  Many Republicans have already signed on as co-sponsors of the bill, and it will probably come down to a party line vote, unless enough pro-life Democrats cross the party line. 

The outcome of this clash of cultures will be very telling.  If the ruling is not reversed, keep in mind that HHS still has to write hundreds more regulations in order to fully implement Obamacare.   There are lots more opportunities for the current administration to mandate things like physician-assisted suicide, death with dignity guidelines, mandatory inoculation for STDs, and guidelines for how much healthcare can be afforded when spent on the elderly.   Stay tuned.  It’s getting interesting