Recently there has been quite a bit in the news about conflict between Religious Freedom and Healthcare. Specifically, the mandate for employers to provide health insurance meeting standards and the freedom of religious organizations to refuse what they feel in morally objectionable. To be even more specific, the administration believes contraceptive services should be included in all health plans but the Catholic Church believes contraception is morally objectionable and that they should be forced to provide such is an issue of religious freedom.

The administration is tasked with outlining minimum standards for health insurance policies under Affordable Care Act (aka ObamaCare). The administration has decided all policies should cover contraception with an exception for religious institutions such as churches and other houses of worship but the Catholic Church does not want to provide such coverage to employees of its many charitable organizations. The Obama administration has proposed a compromise which is still unacceptable to many.

Although it is often presented as a simple fight between religious freedom and a woman’s right to contraception, it is much more than that. Opens up a whole bunch of questions worth thinking about.

Should the exemption to health care requirements be limited to established churches alone?

What about church-related organizations?

Should any employer because of his or her church be exempt for providing some aspects of health insurance to employees?

Does a church need to be of any particular size before its members are allowed to object to the health care law on religious grounds?

How about employer with religious objections not based on any church?

What if the employer objects to more than contraception? Say the objection is to transfusions, surgery, chemotherapy, diseases related to various lifestyle factors, etc.

If an employer has objection to providing insurance or certain parts of insurance should that employer provide the employee with an allowance comparable to what the employer would pay for a policy they are willing to provide?

Since this is so complicated, should we just skip the employer mandate and move toward a single payer system or individual policies?