Go Irish? Puh-leese!

This from the National Catholic Register justifies one more use of our Remnant cartoon from some years ago…

The University of Notre Dame has approved a student health-insurance plan that will result in the provision to students of contraceptives, abortion-inducing drugs and other preventive services covered under the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ mandate.The university’s decision to provide the group health plan for students comes as Notre Dame pursues its legal challenge to the HHS mandate. Critics thus expressed concern that the move could undermine the university’s legal case, especially when other options were available for circumventing compliance requirements for the mandate.

“The university need not provide student health insurance at all,” said Gerard Bradley, a constitutional scholar at Notre Dame’s law school, who outlined the options available to university administrators.

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Bradley noted that only group health plans must comply with the mandate. Consequently, the university also had another option: It could have opted to self-insure the plan for students and avoid coverage of services that violate Catholic teaching.

“Notre Dame could self-insure the students — as they do the faculty and staff — and if they self-insure, they would be free to exclude the contraceptive coverage,” said Bradley.

The Notre Dame law professor was equally concerned about the legal implications of the university’s voluntary decision to provide services it had strongly opposed in legal papers filed with a U.S. district court.

“In its pending lawsuit about the employee and staff health plan, Notre Dame has said that its Catholic faith forbids it to arrange or facilitate coverage for contraception and abortion,” Bradley said.

“Yet when it comes to student health coverage, the university has chosen to facilitate and arrange coverage for contraception and abortion. The court hearing Notre Dame’s lawsuit will surely notice this inconsistency.”

Notre Dame: No Comment