Wrongful Birth Bill passes in Arizona

[AXOmom]

Well, it's in legaleese, so I'll defer to someone who speaks that language and admit I may be totally misunderstanding the highlighted blue and red portions but what I understood each of those sections to say was that religous employers have the right to refuse certain types of coverage as part of their health plans, so a Catholic church, for instance, can ask their health care provider to exclude prescriptions for birth control from their employee coverage. It sounds like these organizations would first need to notify the health insurance company of each exclusion in writing, but assuming they did that, having those exclusions wouldn't be considered a failure to provide necessary coverage for their employees.

The employee, on the other hand, has the right to seek health care insurance on their own and not use the religous organization's coverage, and they cannot be descriminated against if they choose to do so.

I'm also missing anything that indicated an employee would be fired for using contraceptives - and how in the world would an employer ever be able to get this information anyway?

[WhiteRose1912]

Originally Posted by AXOmom

Well, it's in legaleese, so I'll defer to someone who speaks that language and admit I may be totally misunderstanding the highlighted blue and red portions but what I understood each of those sections to say was that religous employers have the right to refuse certain types of coverage as part of their health plans, so a Catholic church, for instance, can ask their health care provider to exclude prescriptions for birth control from their employee coverage. It sounds like these organizations would first need to notify the health insurance company of each exclusion in writing, but assuming they did that, having those exclusions wouldn't be considered a failure to provide necessary coverage for their employees.

The employee, on the other hand, has the right to seek health care insurance on their own and not use the religous organization's coverage, and they cannot be descriminated against if they choose to do so.

I'm also missing anything that indicated an employee would be fired for using contraceptives - and how in the world would an employer ever be able to get this information anyway?

That's the gist of what I was getting, too, with the addition that if you need contraceptives for a medical reason such as endometriosis, you first have to pay for it out of pocket, then petition to have it covered, for which they will charge you a filing fee.