There is an inherent conflict between Religious Freedom and ObamaCare. Specifically, the mandate for employers to provide health insurance meeting standards and the employers right to refuse what they feel violates their religious beliefs. Considering an recent event demonstrates this clearly.

Much of the fighting over this conflict centers around the inclusion of contraception in all health plans deemed acceptable by the Affordable Care Act (aka ObamaCare) but the Catholic Church and others believe contraception is morally objectionable and that forcing them to provide such is an issue of religious freedom. I have written about this conflict earlier but the controversy does not seem to be going away.

Quite a few of us have no moral problem with contraception but people vary considerably in their beliefs. Let us consider an extreme case.

“We believe in divine healing, that Jesus shed blood for our healing and that he died on the cross to break the devil’s power,” Herbert Schaible said in a 2013 police statement. Medicine, he said, “is against our religious beliefs.”

The above quote is from a USA Today article on 2 parents who believed in faith healing rather than medicine when their children fell ill. There are no winners in this sad story; 2 children died and the parents face prison.

My point is not specifically related to this story but what if someone with similar beliefs was an employer and refused to offer any health insurance that did not reject medicine and relied exclusively on faith healing. This is very unlikely but possible.

If this did happen could the employer claim religious freedom?

What would happen if the case was not quite as extreme? What if the objection is to transfusions, diseases related to various lifestyle factors, surgery, etc?

Think about it.