When Religious Freedom Clashes with Access to Care (New Eng Jour Med)

[pinto]

When Religious Freedom Clashes with Access to Care

Glenn Cohen, J.D., Holly Fernandez Lynch, J.D., M.Bioethics, and Gregory D. Curfman, M.D.
July 2, 2014DOI

At the tail end of this year's Supreme Court term, religious freedom came into sharp conflict with the government's interest in providing affordable access to health care. In a consolidated opinion in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores and Conestoga Wood Specialties Corp. v. Burwell (collectively known as Hobby Lobby) delivered on June 30, the Court sided with religious freedom, highlighting the limitations of our employment-based health insurance system.

Hobby Lobby centered on the contraceptives-coverage mandate, which derived from the Affordable Care Act (ACA) mandate that many employers offer insurance coverage of certain “essential” health benefits, including coverage of “preventive” services without patient copayments or deductibles. The ACA authorized the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to define the scope of those preventive services, a task it delegated to the Institute of Medicine, whose list included all 20 contraceptive agents approved by the Food and Drug Administration. HHS articulated various justifications for the resulting mandate, including the fact that many Americans have difficulty affording contraceptives despite their widespread use and the goal of avoiding a disproportionate financial burden on women. Under the regulation, churches are exempt from covering contraception for their employees, and nonprofit religious organizations may apply for an “accommodation,” which shifts to their insurance companies (or other third parties) the responsibility for providing free access. However, HHS made no exception for for-profit, secular businesses with religious owners.

<snip>

Finally, in the wake of Hobby Lobby, we may anticipate challenges to other medical services that some religions find objectionable, such as vaccinations, infertility treatments, blood transfusions, certain psychiatric treatments, and even hospice care. Hobby Lobby's implications may also extend into civil rights law, with employers asking to “opt out” of laws intended to protect people from employment and housing discrimination based on religion, race, sex, national origin, or pregnancy status. Although the majority deemed these slippery-slope concerns unrealistic, the dissent expressed serious concerns.

Though the decision applies only to closely held, for-profit corporations, it sets a precedent for religious exemptions that could have sweeping implications — and reflects the Supreme Court's great potential impact on U.S. health care. Yet the Court was applying Congress's statute, and Congress could, if it chose, scale back the protection offered to religious objectors — a good reason to share public reactions to the decision with our elected representatives.

http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp1407965?query=TOC

[randys1]

1. Religious freedom MY ASS

This has nothing to do with religion, the bible I think even talks about using abortion, they didnt have birth control back then.

This has to do with immature men and Women, who believe in some silly invisible man in the sky who tells them to hate Gays, Blacks, Muslims, Abortion, etc.

Hate and intolerance is their religion, not Jesus...

[pinto]

3. Specific religious issues aside, I see this as a broader constitutional thing.

Either we uphold separation of church/state or we don't.

[randys1]

4. Listening to Mark Thompson, Sirius, his guest is saying Hobby Lobby been looking

to do this for a long time.

To create religious special treatment, christians only, as their ultimate goal is a christian nation, a christian religion as official religion of the nation etc

This is a two birds one stone also as they viciously hate Obama for being Black so if they can harm his accomplishment, they love it

The LAST thing these filthy pricks are is Christian...last thing

[pinto]

2. (aside) I rankle at the broadly held framing of this as a "religious freedom" issue.

The press trumpets it, talking heads reiterate it and here the New Eng Jour Med makes it a lead. All Americans have the freedom to observe a religion or no religion at all as they see fit. No individual was denied that freedom under ACA. And, likewise, no American can impose a religious condition on terms of employment, housing, etc.

It's a two way street.

[blkmusclmachine]

5. But ... WHOSE phony "religious freedom" trumps .. a rightwinger boss, or his 10,000 women employees?

SCOTUS says: "1 > 10,000"