Federal court rules Oregon law requiring insurance to cover abortion, contraception unconstitutional

States regulate insurance. It would not be unreasonable for Oregon to require insurers to *explicitly highlight* that they do not provide that coverage and that other providers may be able to provide it.

That's truly some patriarchal bull c***. I bet V***** and C***** are covered under insurance policies, but f*** women having the same care and coverage.

No more babies - not in this awful world!

Until suddenly all of them decide they're deeply religious just so they can deny coverage.

Ding ding ding! I can see the argument (whether you agree with abortion/contraception being covered by insurance) that Oregon cannot force religious insurers to cover procedures they view as being antithetical to their religious beliefs. Not saying I love that argument, but that seems like a clear first amendment argument, and one that TBH would likely be viewed favorably by federal courts. Because of this, I would guess the courts are always likely to err on the more lenient side of broad exemptions rather than the narrower purview that Oregon was arguing for. The more troubling outcome is that the Court rules that Oregon cannot regulate whether private insurers - regardless of religious affiliation - cover abortion and contraceptives at all. Not only does this hurt Oregonians (and others) who may find themselves unable to get coverage for these services, but it would open up a lot of additional legal issues around regulation of insurers as a whole. Essentially, such a ruling would the view that such regulation would be violating the rights of individual employees rather then organizations at large (I.e. by forcing insurers to cover abortion you are violating the rights of the individual insurance salesmen, not the rights of the broader company issuing the insurance). And if this is the path they take - the broader ruling that the law itself is unconstitutional- you open up a wide range of regulatory concerns. Can the state force insurers to cover childhood immunizations if there are religious orders that believe such medical treatments are antithetical to their religious beliefs. And because there are few medical procedures that do not have some religious detractors, my biggest fear would be that such a ruling, eventually, could lead to strict guardrails to when and how the government can regulate what insurers must cover, and ultimately the formation of ‘ghost’ insurance companies targeting the poor (and those not covered under an employer) that only provide very limited coverage for ideological reasons (think that they refuse to cover immunizations), but are not required to disclose their religious affiliation. Now, I suspect we will read the decision and it will take the narrow view that Oregon is required to recognize the appellate’s religious exemption, because to do otherwise would be inconsistent, in my view, with the Kim Davis case in which an individual clerk refused a court order to issue marriage licenses to gay couples due to personal religious beliefs.

Your beef should be with the fact that we buy our healthcare from our employers. There was a reason it was started back in the day, but it shouldn’t still be true. As you say, this isn’t something your employer should have a say in.

Well, most people don't get to pick their providers. They get whatever their jobs give them.

That would only be possible if insurance wasn't tied to employment

This isn't coming from the insurance companies. This is a religious org suing saying they shouldn't have to include these coverages for their employee's in the insurance plan at work. This is already (sadly) the case for thousands of companies that claim religious exemptions to providing these coverages. Kind of a nothing burger, click bait title.

These are legitimate reasons for secession from the Union. On top of the other bullshit Trump is pulling like refusing to fund Blue states

It requires a federal government that wants to see costs go down. Remember private insurance would deny everything if they could get away with it. Take in premiums and pay nothing out. The federal government needs to sue and regulate them, doctors offices back into submission or else every tax payer is stuck with the bill.

> Or a business run by Jehovah’s Witness refuses to cover blood transfusions as a religious exemption You're in luck, god recently changed his mind! https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c62j31539dwo

Insurance has never had to cover ED meds and many don't which is why there was a robust grey market for them before they went generic.

I don't really see how ivf is relevant here when this particular law required coverage of all reproductive care *except for the treatment of infertility*. There was another law that was based on this one that would have included coverage for the treatment of infertility since it was purposely left out of this one, but the same groups that campaigned for this law torpedoed that one for a bunch of short sighted reasons (for example they complained about the religious exemption even though it was written the same way that this bill was) and wanted to be paid to do their own study instead. It kinda blindsided the infertility advocacy groups working on the law, and obviously planned parenthood advocates for Oregon has a pac, so they had a lot more power than a small advocacy group full of sad infertile people.  Sorry, I'm still salty and I get pissy over the fact that it feels like access to treatment for infertility is only talked about in relation to and in support of access to abortion, not that I disagree that abortion should be accessible, but it already is a lot more accessible than infertility coverage is. There isn't a single health insurer in Oregon that offers infertility coverage on individual plans, so you can only get it though employer sponsored group plans, and a lot of employers don't offer it. Like, if the only time you care to talk about infertility is when your using it to support something else then stfu.