Sandra Fluke Should Not Transfer To Xavier

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Sandra Fluke Should Not Transfer To Xavier

Mollie Hemingway, Ed. · April 10, 2012 at 6:10am

Xavier University, a Jesuit university in Cincinnati, said this week it would end birth-control coverage for its employees in July, a move that has divided faculty members and students. The move comes amid a dispute between the Obama administration and Roman Catholic bishops over contraception. The controversy prompted Xavier’s president, Michael Graham, a priest, to review the health plan. It is not clear whether Xavier officials knew contraception was covered.

I've been interviewing a number of church officials in recent weeks for a story on religious liberty. You would be surprised how many found, upon reviewing their insurance plans, that they were covering things they don't support.

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show Andrew Johnson's comment (#1) ←

University of Minnesota

Re: Sandra Fluke Should Not Transfer To Xavier

Andrew Johnson

Unlike Xavier, Minnesota is expanding its coverage on contraceptives to those outside of the university's policy.

Even if we were pull this away from a religious freedom argument and make this purely an economic debate, in just a couple paragraphs, here's why this sort of coverage is financially unfeasible:

The new policy won’t cover oral contraceptives because of their popularity, said Dave Golden, a Boynton [Health Services] spokesman.
Pharmaceutical prices at Boynton are fixed to keep it affordable for students, so allowing students to obtain pills from out-of-network pharmacies would increase the overall cost of the plan, he said.

And:

According to Boynton’s 2010 College Student Health Survey, about 43.7 percent of respondents who use contraceptives use birth control pills...
“It’s very frequently prescribed, and that could just run the cost of the plan out of sight,” he said.

The article later quotes three female students parroting Fluke -“a burden having to pay out-of-pocket for it” - but this is my favorite: