Eugene--
You are right that there is no obligation for you to furnish them insurance.
But under the ACA individual mandate, the children are required to have
insurance that includes certain women's health care coverage or else pay a
penalty. And we have set up a system where it is much cheaper to keep children
on their parents' employer-provided group policy than having the children buy
policies in the individual market (assuming they do not have employer-provided
insurance). So we have set up a system with all kinds of economic incentives
that effectively pushes children who are not employed to stay on their parents'
policy-- here one (if the suit is successful) in which the father is
effectively imposing a religious objection on his grown children. He can
presumably do that for minor children, but not adults.
Howard
________________________________
From: religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu [religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu]
on behalf of Volokh, Eugene [vol...@law.ucla.edu]
Sent: Thursday, August 15, 2013 11:33 PM
To: Law & Religion issues for Law Academics (religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu)
Subject: RE: New Twist On Challenge to ACA Contraceptive Mandate
This might just be my ignorance of the ACA, but I’m puzzled:
How is a father “deny[ing] his 18 and 19 year old daughters on his insurance
policy coverage for contraception” by insisting that any such policy not have
such coverage?
I had assumed that once my children are 18, I would have no obligation to get
them insurance, or anything at all. I might well still get them such insurance
(I do love them), but if I choose not to, I thought that this choice wouldn’t
be “deny[ing]” them anything, just as my choice not to buy or lend them a car
wouldn’t be “deny[ing]” them a car. And if I give them an insurance policy
that’s not as good as the one they’d like (or that the government thinks they
ought to have), I still wouldn’t be “deny[ing]” them the better coverage – I’d
just be giving them, with no obligation on my part, something less than what
they’d like (just as my buying them a car without air conditioning wouldn’t be
denying them air conditioning). Or does the ACA impose such an obligation on
the parents of 18- and 19-year-old adults?
Eugene
From: religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu
[mailto:religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu] On Behalf Of Renee L. Cyr, Esq.
Sent: Thursday, August 15, 2013 8:19 PM
To: religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu
Subject: Re: New Twist On Challenge to ACA Contraceptive Mandate
>Does anyone have a problem with a father, on religious freedom grounds, being
>able to deny his 18 and 19 year old daughters
>on his insurance policy coverage for contraception that the government has
>mandated generally? Those are the facts in this
>case.
I think that's part of the point that Marci was making -- and not only for an
18 or 19 year old.
The father wasn't just saying he didn't want his girls to practice
contraception; he said he wanted them to not have access to contraception. The
former would be a particular medication used for a particular purpose; the
latter, as I see it, is access to the particular medication, period. I can't
imagine an insurer writing a policy, today, that makes a distinction between
birth control pills that are prescribed as birth control and those prescribed
for another stated purpose (in which case the doctor would need to call the
insurer to get the prescription approved in advance, as is the case today for
some specialty drugs). Yet it would seem to me that writing a policy that
fails to provide for a woman's reproductive health needs -- such as in the case
of someone needing hormonal "birth control" to control cyst formation,
excessive bleeding or whatever other symptom -- would violate the law.
And unlike having the power to say "I choose not to use birth control," one
can't demand that one's body function correctly. One can't say, "I choose not
to have cysts" or "bleed excessively during menstruation." Those conditions
arise on their own, without warning, and need to be treated when they occur --
whether or not the insured expected to ever need hormonal "birth control" for a
non-contraceptive purpose. Waiving one's potential access to hormonal
treatments for these conditions would be, at best, ill advised, though I
suppose that's not a constitutional issue.
The other issue I see in the previous post is perhaps more relevant (and it
might be the only one he intended to address) -- how can someone demand that
mandated health coverage *not* be provided for someone else? It would seem to
me that he can't -- any such waiver would need to be signed by the daughters
themselves. The father would, of course, have the right to not carry his
daughters on his policy if they refused to sign the waiver. (I'm not going to
address the issues regarding coercion that may be ethically compelling but not
directly relevant to this discussion.)
- Renee
Renee L. Cyr, Esq.
Office of Steve S. Efron
237 West 35th Street, Suite 1502
New York, NY 10001
(212) 867-1067
-----Original Message-----
From: Friedman, Howard M.
<howard.fried...@utoledo.edu<mailto:howard.fried...@utoledo.edu>>
To: Law & Religion issues for Law Academics
<religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu<mailto:religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu>>
Sent: Thu, Aug 15, 2013 10:48 pm
Subject: RE: New Twist On Challenge to ACA Contraceptive Mandate
Does anyone have a problem with a father, on religious freedom grounds, being
able to deny his 18 and 19 year old daughters on his insurance policy coverage
for contraception that the government has mandated generally? Those are the
facts in this case.
_______________________________________________
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