On the one hand, people are exempt from the individual mandate (that requires them to either buy a health insurance plan or pay a penalty) if they have a religious objection. Such groups include members of shared care organizations, which allow Christians to donate money to other members in need and then pay medical providers outright–avoiding health insurance entirely. Most notably, the Amish are not subject to the mandate.
For similar reasons, they already have an exemption from Social Security and Medicaid taxes: since they choose to live mostly outside of modern society and take care of each other instead of purchasing any kind of insurance, which is against their beliefs, they are not penalized.There are few loopholes: in order to be considered legitimate, they have to have been legally registered prior to the year 2000. This will minimize the chance of people banding together and claiming that they reject the idea of health insurance on religious conscience grounds, when their real objection is towards so-called “Obamacare” specifically. It will be difficult for those who drive cars and purchase auto insurance to mount a successful objection.Religious opposition to abortion alone is not enough to qualify for the conscience exemption. In those cases, they can use their dollars to purchase and support those plans in the exchange market that do not offer abortion coverage.However, churches and other religious employers are subject to the corporate mandate that the majority companies and organizations offer affordable health insurance. Most of them already offer group coverage, and those plans will be modified to meet the new minimum coverage requirements and medical loss ratios.The standard coverage requirements do not include abortion or other controversial treatments such as stem cell research. Although old health insurance plans and benefit levels will be grandfathered into the healthcare reform legislation, several other benefits will be mandated. For example, in 2014 policies will be required to allow employees’ children to stay on their parents’ coverage until the age of 26; at the same time, they will be banned from setting lifetime limits on coverage.
Tags: abortion coverage, affordable health insurance, corporate mandate, health insurance plan, health insurance plans, health insurance reform, loss ratios, purchase auto insurance, religious conscience, religious objection