Catholic Conference official expresses opposition to HHS mandate
July 29, 2019 at 12:37 p.m.
Patrick R. Brannigan, executive director of the New Jersey Catholic Conference, has joined a growing list of Catholic clergy, officials, health care professionals and lay people around the nation calling on U.S. officials and lawmakers to oppose the August 1 U.S. Department of Health and Human Services mandate.
According to the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, the mandate will require virtually all private health plans to include coverage for all FDA-approved prescription contraceptives, sterilization procedures, and related "patient education and counseling for all women with reproductive capacity." These are listed among "preventive services for women" that all health plans will have to include without co-pays or other cost-sharing – regardless of whether the insurer, the employer or other plan sponsor, or even the woman herself objects to such coverage.
Click HERE for the NJ Catholic Conference letter.
In a Sept. 22 letter to U.S. Health Secretary Kathleen Sibelius, Brannigan signaled his “strong opposition” to the proposal, which, in its current form, he wrote, considers “pregnancy as a disease” and employs such a narrow definition of a religious employer that most Catholic charitable and healthcare organizations would not be exempt from the mandate.
He called upon the secretary to “rescind the proposed regulations. If not rescinded, we urge that the regulations be modified to expand the religious exemption to reflect a more inclusive understanding of religion and especially religious institutional services that are provided beyond any consideration of a client’s religious beliefs.”
Brannigan dismissed suggestions that religious employers will have grandfather status in health care plans that would not be subject to the prevention/termination of pregnancy mandate. “This position,” he wrote, “ignores the fragile nature of grandfather status.
“Simple modifications like the elimination of some benefits, increasing cost-sharing and certain other changes will eliminate grandfather status,” Brannigan wrote, making it “very likely over time, that the opportunity to avoid the Institute of Medicine’s list of preventative services for women will be lost to nearly every private plan.”
Citing the long record of the Catholic Church in New Jersey and throughout the nation in advocating for health care reform and providing access to quality, affordable healthcare by way of its own institutions, Brannigan stressed that “we have always insisted that moral and religious conscience must not be suppressed.”
If the Institute of Medicine recommendations are adopted, he wrote, “suppression of religious conscience is exactly what will occur.”
Adopting the regulations as written wouldn’t only pose a moral hardship for Catholics, it could have a rebound affect on the many non-Catholics employed in or serviced by Catholic institutions, he wrote.
“Catholic hospitals admit patients from all religious faiths and those without religious affiliations. Catholic Charities serve over 9 million people annually, many – if not most of whom are not Catholic. Our institutions and social service agencies focus on serving the homeless, feeding the hungry and we work to assist the poor and needy without regard to their faith.”
Because of the narrow religious conscience regulation, he wrote, Catholic institutions might be “forced to employ only Catholics and agencies such as Catholic Charities might be restricted to serve only Catholics.”
Rather than narrowing the definition of what it means to be a religious organization, he wrote, the Department of Health and Human Services and the federal government should “continue to protect religious liberty as it has been protected in the past.”
In an earlier letter to New Jersey’s congressional delegation, co-written by Sister Patricia Codey, president of the Catholic HealthCare Partnership of New Jersey, Brannigan asked for support on the Respect for Rights of Conscience Act of 2011 introduced earlier this year which seeks to correct the inadequate religious/conscience protections in the Affordability Care Act.
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Patrick R. Brannigan, executive director of the New Jersey Catholic Conference, has joined a growing list of Catholic clergy, officials, health care professionals and lay people around the nation calling on U.S. officials and lawmakers to oppose the August 1 U.S. Department of Health and Human Services mandate.
According to the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, the mandate will require virtually all private health plans to include coverage for all FDA-approved prescription contraceptives, sterilization procedures, and related "patient education and counseling for all women with reproductive capacity." These are listed among "preventive services for women" that all health plans will have to include without co-pays or other cost-sharing – regardless of whether the insurer, the employer or other plan sponsor, or even the woman herself objects to such coverage.
Click HERE for the NJ Catholic Conference letter.
In a Sept. 22 letter to U.S. Health Secretary Kathleen Sibelius, Brannigan signaled his “strong opposition” to the proposal, which, in its current form, he wrote, considers “pregnancy as a disease” and employs such a narrow definition of a religious employer that most Catholic charitable and healthcare organizations would not be exempt from the mandate.
He called upon the secretary to “rescind the proposed regulations. If not rescinded, we urge that the regulations be modified to expand the religious exemption to reflect a more inclusive understanding of religion and especially religious institutional services that are provided beyond any consideration of a client’s religious beliefs.”
Brannigan dismissed suggestions that religious employers will have grandfather status in health care plans that would not be subject to the prevention/termination of pregnancy mandate. “This position,” he wrote, “ignores the fragile nature of grandfather status.
“Simple modifications like the elimination of some benefits, increasing cost-sharing and certain other changes will eliminate grandfather status,” Brannigan wrote, making it “very likely over time, that the opportunity to avoid the Institute of Medicine’s list of preventative services for women will be lost to nearly every private plan.”
Citing the long record of the Catholic Church in New Jersey and throughout the nation in advocating for health care reform and providing access to quality, affordable healthcare by way of its own institutions, Brannigan stressed that “we have always insisted that moral and religious conscience must not be suppressed.”
If the Institute of Medicine recommendations are adopted, he wrote, “suppression of religious conscience is exactly what will occur.”
Adopting the regulations as written wouldn’t only pose a moral hardship for Catholics, it could have a rebound affect on the many non-Catholics employed in or serviced by Catholic institutions, he wrote.
“Catholic hospitals admit patients from all religious faiths and those without religious affiliations. Catholic Charities serve over 9 million people annually, many – if not most of whom are not Catholic. Our institutions and social service agencies focus on serving the homeless, feeding the hungry and we work to assist the poor and needy without regard to their faith.”
Because of the narrow religious conscience regulation, he wrote, Catholic institutions might be “forced to employ only Catholics and agencies such as Catholic Charities might be restricted to serve only Catholics.”
Rather than narrowing the definition of what it means to be a religious organization, he wrote, the Department of Health and Human Services and the federal government should “continue to protect religious liberty as it has been protected in the past.”
In an earlier letter to New Jersey’s congressional delegation, co-written by Sister Patricia Codey, president of the Catholic HealthCare Partnership of New Jersey, Brannigan asked for support on the Respect for Rights of Conscience Act of 2011 introduced earlier this year which seeks to correct the inadequate religious/conscience protections in the Affordability Care Act.
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