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Archive for February, 2012

Pushing through this monstrous legislation called the Patient Protection and Affordability Care Act (PPACA) was just a beginning of slowly escalating problems with implementation of gradually coming to effect provisions.

We did really well eliminating pre-existing condition limits for children, and everyone liked the young adult coverage extension to age 26, under the parents large group policies.

We are hitting a bump on the road with implementation of the medical loss ratio, which is now in the books and forcing the insurance companies to pay out about 80% of collected premiums on claim expenses. Just like any other business, insurance companies have regular business expenses they have to account for. So the battle was brewing for a while to decide which expenses can be allocated under the general umbrella of claims expense.

The new major outcry is now originating from religious groups. The law added a significant change which makes women health and reproduction along with planned birth control part of a category of preventive care.

In the past religion based institutions were exempted from covering birth control and coverage for reproductive services, other than child birth. The PPACA now requires faith based large organizations, such as hospitals and universities to cover birth control as part of the basic preventive care. (Small churches with only faith based employees are still exempt.)

There is nothing in this law that force women to use birth control, it is only an option to do so. My insurance covers surgery for broken leg, yet I don’t go and break my leg, just because it is covered. This law simply gives women the option to use family planning, fertilization treatments and birth control if they so desire.

Why should this option denied for women who do not agree with the church dogma, or not even catholic, just because their employer has a religious objection to it?

These same religious organizations receive significant federal funding; yet want to be excluded from public healthcare policy. It would seem fair to me to obey federal policy in return for federal funding.