Catholic Healthcare West is one of the biggest hospital systems in the United States. It has decided to end its affiliation with the Catholic Church, and to change its name. The change is not going to affect patients, or the medical care provided at these hospitals.
When I first heard about this change, I immediately thought about the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, and their battle against a particular health reform law. In short, the Bishops do not feel that Catholic hospitals, Catholic universities, or Catholic social service agencies should have to follow this particular law, because doing so would go against their religious beliefs.
The law is part of the Affordable Care Act. To make a long story short, birth control is officially considered to be a part of preventative care. All health insurance companies must cover all forms of preventative care in their health plans. This means that businesses, like hospitals, universities, social service agencies, and more, would have to offer their workers health plans that cover birth control.
The federal government has allowed churches, synagogues, mosques, and other places of religious worship to be exempt from having to follow this law. Religious businesses will get extra time to comply with the law than the non-religious businesses will, (presumably to give those organizations time to adjust).
This isn’t good enough for the Bishops, who are planning on suing the federal government about this issue. In the meantime, there is concern that they will drop all health insurance coverage for all employees who work in Catholic hospitals and other Catholic businesses.
Now, it seems that Catholic Healthcare West has decided to end it’s governing board’s affiliation with the Catholic Church. The new name will be Dignity Health.
There are 25 Catholic hospitals, and 15 secular hospitals, that were a part of Catholic Healthcare West.
Patients will not be affected by this organizational change. The hospitals are planning on continuing to adhere to Catholic health care directives. Just like before the change, the hospitals will not preform abortions (unless the mother’s life is in danger), and it will not preform in-vitro fertilization.
There are two official reasons for this change. One reason is that there seem to be a dwindling number of nuns who are willing and able to run a healthcare system. Another reason is that the hospital system will have a better opportunity to grow if it is not, specifically, a Catholic group. There was concern that secular hospitals might have been hesitant to join Catholic Healthcare West because they were worried that they would be required to adhere to Catholic healthcare doctrine.
It is worth mentioning that hospitals that are no longer affiliated with the Catholic Church are, in many ways, no longer, officially, a Catholic hospital. If the Bishops choose to drop all health care coverage for employees of Catholic hospitals, it seems that the ones in Dignity Health will not be affected by that decision anymore.
Image by FotoKatolik on Flickr