Under HHS’ newest rule, religious institutions and religiously-affiliated non-profits can exclude free contraception coverage to employees and still comply with the federal health law’s essential health benefits provision. Those employees would still be able to acquire that free coverage, paid for by insurance companies instead of the religious groups. Secular organizations led or owned by religious people are not eligible for the exemption.
President of the USCCB Cardinal Timothy Dolan said in a statement that the ruling “appears to offer second-class status to our first-class institutions in Catholic healthcare, Catholic education and Catholic charities. [HHS] offers what it calls an ‘accommodation,’ rather than accepting the fact that these ministries are integral to our church and worthy of the same exemption as our Catholic churches.”
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