HHS Edict Controversy

I have been inundated with friends and relatives posting on Facebook about how it is illegal for the US government to force Catholic institutions to "provide abortions and contraceptives" as it is a violation of the First Amendment. My reaction is that 90% of these people need to go back to school and relearn reading comprehension and civics. I have 3 main issues with these Facebook posts.

First issue: The HHS Edict States that Health Insurance Plans HAVE to offer coverage for contraceptives and abortions under preventive care. This means that the big Catholic Universities, Hospitals and Schools (ie businesses) must offer coverage for contraceptives and abortions. This does not mean that anyone is decreeing that people who object to these services HAVE to utilize them. The only must be included in the health insurance plan by law. Direct employees of the Catholic Church (think priests, nuns, rectory employees, groundskeepers, etc) are exempt from this requirement because the funding for their paychecks comes directly from a religious organization. Why are the Catholic Universities, Hospitals and Schools required to offer them? Well, because most of them accept at least some form of money from our government: research grants, Medicare payments, education subsidies, etc. If they don't want to offer contraceptives and abortion coverage then they do NOT have to. All they have to do is stop accepting government money for ANYTHING. Yet they are Businesses, so they don't want to do that.

Second Issue: I'm not sure WHERE people are getting this, but they seem to think that the Government is going to require Catholic Hospitals to offer contraceptives and abortions. In any case, my argument is the same as above- as long as they take Medicare, they have to have a contract with the Government. If the Government wants to stipulate that in order to get Medicare payments, they must offer certain services, well guess what, they can! This is called contract negotiation and it is part of the foundation of free commerce. Once again, the Catholic Church is under no obligation to enter this contract. However, without the Medicare contract, the Catholic Church has only two options. One is that they will have to turn patients away - thereby losing their status as Emergency and Trauma Centers as in order to earn these designations, you have to accept all patients regardless of insurance or ability to pay. The other options is that the church will have to shell out a LOT of extra money to finance the care of patients with Medicare. Either way, this hurts their profit margins.

Third Issue: The US Government is "attacking Catholicism." This isn't something "singling Catholics out." Catholics are just the only religion making themselves look like uneducated asses over it.

OK, end of my rant. Feel free to disagree - I do enjoy debating!