Federal health plan to offer faith-based option for first time

Published: 2004-10-01

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- Federal employees and retirees in central Illinois will be able to choose a Catholic health insurance plan billed as "faith based" for the first time in 2005. The new option for federal workers is offered by OSF HealthPlans, a for-profit insurance company that operates in conjunction with OSF HealthCare, a not-for-profit corporation owned and operated by the Sisters of the Third Order of St. Francis. The Catholic health insurer based in Peoria, Ill., has offered an HMO plan to participants in the Federal Employee Health Benefits Plan since 1998, but its new option involves a high-deductible health plan with a health savings account or a health reimbursement arrangement, two choices promoted by the Bush administration to give individuals greater control over their health care spending. Excluded from coverage are contraceptives, abortion, sterilization and artificial insemination -- all practices considered illicit in Catholic teaching. In a Sept. 29 interview with Catholic News Service, Abby Block, deputy associate director for employment and family support policy at the Office of Personnel Management in Washington, said no federal employee or retiree will be forced to choose OSF HealthPlans, since each can choose from among a dozen national plans as well as those limited to their geographical area.

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