In February, the U.S. House Oversight and Government Reform Committee held a hearing entitled “Lines crossed: Separation of Church and State. Has the Obama Administration Trampled on Freedom of Religion and Freedom of Conscience?”
Ten speakers testified, divided equally into two panels.
The morning panel was composed of clergy discussing the need for an exemption from the contraceptive mandate.
The second panel, consisting of senior officials representing institutions affected by the mandate, testified in the afternoon.
Some spectators walked out in protest in the morning, allegedly because no women were testifying.
However, there were two women on the second panel: Dr. Allison Dabs Garrett of Oklahoma Christian University, and Laura Champion, M.D., of Calvin College Health Services.
On the day of the hearing, Sandra Fluke, a Georgetown Law student, was nominated as a Democratic witness on the first panel.
The Republican Committee chair declined to seat her, stating that she “lacked expertise in questions of religious freedoms under federal law,” and because she was not a member of the clergy.
The Democrats invited Fluke to testify before their Steering and Policy Committee, chaired by Nancy Pelosi, a week after the first hearing.
In her testimony, Fluke told of a friend diagnosed with polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS), a condition in which cysts grow on the ovaries.
Treatment normally consists of prescription birth control medication. Her prescription to treat PCOS was supposedly covered by Georgetown student insurance.
Fluke complained about insurance representatives and university medical staff “interrogating” students about their PCOS prescriptions.
Evidently, there were suspicions that the students wanted birth control pills for contraceptive purposes, rather than for treating PCOS.
Fluke stated that her friend, as well as 20 percent of the women in her situation, was denied coverage.
Her friend ended up in the emergency room with a tennis-ball sized cyst growing on her ovary.
It was removed, and she now lives with the possibility of being unable to conceive.
The Office of Rare Diseases of the National Institutes of Health (HIH) lists PCOS as a rare disease, affecting less than 200,000 women in the U.S. Five to 10 percent of women between ages 12 and 45 are afflicted with PCOS.
Questions abound.
Because PCOS is rare, the number of women on college campuses that have PCOS and are denied insurance for medication is rather small.
Public health policy should not be dictated by such small numbers. However, the small number of PCOS cases should not form an insurmountable burden for an insurance carrier.
Why did this particular Democratic committee invite Fluke to testify about student medical insurance or anything related to it?
This committee’s normal task is to assign House Democrats to other committees. Could it be for publicity purposes? And what criteria were used that qualified Fluke to testify?
How much political theater was involved in the spectators’ decision to walk out of the hearing? Did they return in the afternoon?
Is there a reason Fluke used the term “interrogating” when describing the scrutiny used by the insurance company?
This word can be very pejorative, with all sorts of dark connotations. As a law student, presumably she knows the power and value of words.
If birth control medication is so expensive (Fluke quotes an annual price of $1,000), no wonder insurance companies are hesitant about covering its cost. But if birth control pills are relatively inexpensive, as some claim, why should it be covered by insurance at all? Insurance is used to indemnify for large losses.
There’s a good reason aspirin is not covered by medical insurance.
The bottom line: More questions are raised by Fluke’s testimony than answers provided.
Large gray areas are involved and the subject is neither simple nor easy.
In a future column, Fluke’s concept of an “entitlement” and its ramifications will be explored.
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