<p>You’re talking about using a TPA - third party administrator. The major insurance companies deal with them on a large scale.</p>
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<p>Cold medicine? Where did I post that? (Seriously.)</p>
<p>Strep throat can be a highly contagious disease that any group living environment tries to mitigate quickly. While it can be quickly treated, it does requires a prescription, which requires a visit to a doctor/student health center.</p>
<p>Acute otitis media is a bacteria infection, which can cause significant pain, and if left untreated, rupture the tympanic membrane. Moreover, it cannot and will not heal itself without a prescription.</p>
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<p>In many cases, the large insurance companies are also TPA’s. Cigna, Aetna et al provide claims processing for self-funded companies. They even provide claims processing for Medicare.</p>
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Birth control pills are one thing, and I think it’s not so expensive as to be prohibitive to most employed people. The question of sterilization is more concerning. A woman working at one of the institutions in question who wants a TL that isn’t covered by her or her H’s insurance could have a very hard time saving up for one. Especially if the H is against the procedure. It would seem that she is relegated to not having the procedure, scraping to save for it, or trying to get another position with insurance coverage. If her position is on the faculty, that could present major problems (H doesn’t want to move, etc.).</p>
<p>Also, the ruling is supposedly about EMPLOYEES of these institutions. Posters are talking about STUDENTS and the student health coverage/services. Is that included in the mandate?</p>
<p>Agree that TL procedure would be a bigger problem but Planned Parenthood lists the price of BC at $15-$50 a month. Everyone won’t be able to use the $15 a month choice and even at that price, it sill be a hardship for some. I’m not talking about professors or higher paid employees but there are many lower paying jobs at hospitals and universities. Let’s average it $30 a month. People living pay to pay check will have a problem.</p>
<p>I don’t know if student insurance is covered in the mandate, but I do know that at Fordham, a Catholic university, student health services doesn’t offer any sort of contraception. It’s a big issue for students there. </p>
<p>Back a bit in the thread someone asked why a non-Catholic would take a job as a professor at a Catholic college or university. It is to laugh. They take the job because it’s a job in academia. Catholic universities are not like conservative Christian schools, where everyone is required to sign a statement of faith. Catholic universities welcome students and faculty of all religious persuasions.</p>
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<p>Indeed. And the college would hire them because they are great professors. One such Professor, who teaches Christian Theology at BC, is Jewish.</p>
<p>Many, many people of different faiths or no faith work at Catholic universities and hospitals. I have several friends who work at the local Catholic affiliated hospitals. They are all Jewish.</p>
<p>Cardinal Fang: On Fordham "For employees and students, we provide insurance coverage that includes contraception. That’s the law.”</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/11/nyregion/catholic-institutions-reluctantly-comply-with-ny-contraceptives-law.html[/url]”>http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/11/nyregion/catholic-institutions-reluctantly-comply-with-ny-contraceptives-law.html</a></p>
<p>Although I posted earlier that Villanova will not dispense contraceptives through on campus Health Services, the insurance that they offer to students does include coverage for contraceptives. I do not have access to any information as to whether their employees enjoy the same coverage.</p>
<p>I wonder about the prescribing of BC pills for other things. If I need them to regulate hormones, are they available? They used to prescribe them for acne, I think. </p>
<p>The biggest issue I see with this, other than once again it really only hurts poor people, is that to me it is a slippery slope. What else can they decide not to cover? It is bad enough that insurance companies make the number of decisions they make.</p>
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True, MD Mom, but isn’t the same thing also then true in the other direction? What else can the government decide to make them cover? It always seems hazardous to me to get into the slippery slope arguments.</p>
<p>“The biggest issue I see with this, other than once again it really only hurts poor people, is that to me it is a slippery slope. What else can they decide not to cover? It is bad enough that insurance companies make the number of decisions they make.”</p>
<p>That is why all the talk of allowing insurance to be sold across state lines is a horrible idea. Companies would just incorporate in the state with the fewest mandates. </p>
<p>That is what happened with credit cards companies. They all moved to NDAK, whose Usury statutes had no interest rates limits, when the law was changed. That is why we have the outrageous interest rates on credit cards now.</p>
<p>So what we’ve discovered in all this is that hundreds of Catholic institutions - colleges, universities, hospitals, health systems, chaplaincies, and maybe, in some cases, churches currently provide contraceptive coverage through their health insurance - either by choice or by law - to students, employees, their spouses, and their dependents - whether Catholic or not - defying Church doctrine, pious statements of bishops, and the proclamation of the Pope himself. And that tens of millions of American Catholics use this contraception, and, when they don’t do effectively, resort to abortion in larger percentages than their share in the population would suggest. </p>
<p>There’s no iota of evidence to suggest that the Catholic Church is ever going to be able to pull them back to what I consider to be the Dark Ages.</p>
<p>Sprintec and Trisprintec birth control pills are available at Walmart for $9 per month. That’s the real price, not a copay.</p>
<p>The makers of Mirena (the 5 year hormone coated IUD that dramatically lightens flow) just out and out doubled the price from $400 to >$800 a couple of years ago because they sensed they had a corner on the market, since potentially competing products from Europe and Canada are mysteriously unavailable. Together with the insertion the Mirena runs $1000. But it is a good alternative for women who can’t take birth control pills. The Catholic plans won’t cover these, not even for a hemophiliac woman whose nearly catastrophic monthly flow has been thankfully controlled by this IUD. The last insertion was covered by a normal plan before her husband was hired by a Catholic non-church institution. Her new plan won’t make exception for this clear medical reason. There are arguably two moral transgressions here: the absurd sudden doubling of the price and the Catholic plan’s refusal to cover this IUD.</p>
<p>Wasn’t the Vatican’s policy of preaching against condom use in Africa implicated in the spread of HIV there? Who really has the higher moral ground, supporters of contraception or those opposed?</p>
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<p>This is actually a big issue for me. I take (and have taken) BC pills since I was 14 for PCOS. I would be in very big trouble if my insurance didn’t cover birth control since that’s about the only treatment out there for this condition. Luckily, that hasn’t been an issue <em>yet</em>. </p>
<p>I already had a hard enough time with my ulcerative colitis when it came to getting things covered (luckily the key word is <em>had</em> 
because it was a pre-existing condition). If I didn’t have BC covered either, I would have one expensive and uninsured body.</p>
<p>My older daughter takes them for the same reason, and we are thankful that our insurance, which we get through an self-ensuring Catholic health system - the largest in the state - covers it in its entirety.</p>
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I appreciate that people are taking them for various reasons, but it really shouldn’t be the business of an employer to know and make judgments about the reasons. Who would want to have to stand in front of a panel of their (all male, lol) bosses and try to explain the intricacies of dysmenorrhea? And who would truly expect to find sympathy there anyways?</p>
<p>It seems to me that there are many, many things of which the church (and other religious institutions) do not approve, and which they are not so circumspect about trying to restrict.</p>
<p>^ So is the Church’s interest in whether or not conception occurs, as it claims, or in regulating the sexual behavior of women? </p>
<p>You all are aware that Viagra is on every formulary, right?</p>
<p>All I have to say is that religion should not hold this much power over our society. Religion should not dictate government policy. Faith is private - between an individual and their God. Religion is business.</p>
<p>Covering birth control pills is relatively new practice for most companies. It wasn’t until after our kids were born that DH’s employer included birth control pills as a covered prescription on our plan. If you have issues with your birth control being covered or not, take it up with your HR department, they are the ones that decide what is and is not going to be covered. The other point people are missing is that you don’t HAVE to work for a religious organization that chooses not to cover birth control pills if you feel that strongly about the issue. You do have other free and low cost options if you can’t get them covered through your employer’s health plan. Same with college students, campus health centers are very limited in what they do. It’s not unreasonable that a child should establish a relationship with a near by full service doctor’s office for things that happen outside of the scope of the student health center.</p>