How Catholic Bishops Are Shaping Health Care In Rural America

[NeoGreen]

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-catholic-bishops-are-shaping-health-care-in-rural-america/

How Catholic Bishops Are Shaping Health Care In Rural America

Almost as soon as President Trump took office, he began rolling back health care rules that had angered religious groups for much of the last decade. First, Trump signed an executive order declaring that his administration would protect religious freedom. Then, his administration ruled that health insurance plans offered by large employers don’t have to cover contraception for employees, an about-face from a contentious Obama policy. The Department of Health and Human Services created a Conscience and Religious Freedom Division, signaling a new focus for the agency. A proposed rule could require all 5,500 hospitals in the U.S. to post notices informing individuals and entities that they are protected from religious discrimination.

The changes are all designed to ensure that employers, health care institutions and providers don’t have to participate in health care practices they object to for ethical or moral reasons. But even decades before the Trump administration moved to roll back Obamacare policies, some religious hospitals — in particular, Catholic hospitals — already had the green light from the government to deny certain treatment options to their patients. These hospitals’ right to refuse care is generally unquestioned, creating a dilemma for the people who walk in the door: What happens when you need or want a standard medical service, but the hospital won’t provide it?

(snip)

It’s difficult to know what services are and are not available at each of these facilities because interpretation of Catholic doctrine is done locally by individual bishops and decisions are often made on a case-by-case basis. But abortion, birth control, vasectomies, tubal ligations, some types of end-of-life care, emergency contraception and procedures related to gender transition can all be off-limits if your local hospital happens to be Catholic.

Emphasis added.

[trotsky]

1. I remember a DUer who has (thankfully) since vanished...

saying that if you objected to this, you were "proposing genocide."

Ah yes, here it is...

[MineralMan]

2. Yes. Rationalization or something.

It's OK, because something.

[Major Nikon]

3. Such flawed beliefs are common

The idea is that without religion benevolent acts perpetrated by religionists would cease, which makes equal sense to the claim that abscent religion there would be more immoral acts.

What makes more sense is that abscent religion secularism would do just as well, actually better when you consider the resources used begging favor from mythology could be repurposed.

[Act_of_Reparation]

4. If you take a look at Public v. Non-Profit v. Religious v. For-Profit hospitals...

...religous hospitals are less charitable than non-profits and public hospitals. Gosh.

[Major Nikon]

5. That effect is pretty obvious if you think about it

Secular charities have to justify a benefit to society in order to get and maintain freedom from taxation. With religious organization they enjoy such benefit purely through identification.

If we modified the tax code such that all religious organizations had to qualify for tax exemption in the same way secular organizations do, you'd see an improvement to society immediately, yet no politician has the muster to even propose such an action.