Court rules out contraception coverage, but…

There are a couple of qualifiers embedded in this story about the recent federal appeals court ruling that health care coverage could exclude birth control.

The Union Pacific Railroad Company did not discriminate against its female employees by excluding birth-control pills from its health insurance coverage, according to a federal appellate panel in St. Louis.

In the first federal appellate ruling on the issue, the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit ruled 2 to 1 on Thursday that because the railroad’s health insurance plans did not cover any types of contraception, for men or women, it did not violate the Pregnancy Discrimination Act, part of the federal law forbidding discrimination in employment.

“Union Pacific’s health plans do not cover any contraception used by women such as birth control, sponges, diaphragms, intrauterine devices or tubal ligations or any contraception used by men such as condoms and vasectomies,” the opinion said. “Therefore, the coverage provided to women is not less favorable than that provided to men.”

Thursday’s ruling grew out of several sex-discrimination lawsuits by female Union Pacific employees who used prescription contraception…The suits were consolidated into a class-action suit on behalf of all the railroad’s females employees who used prescription contraception without insurance reimbursement.

Note that this is the first federal appellate ruling on this issue. That’s key. Here’s what led up to the 8th Circuit hearing…

In July 2005, a federal district court in Nebraska ruled in favor of the plaintiffs and ordered Union Pacific to cover all prescription contraception approved by the Food and Drug Administration.

Under Thursday’s ruling, the company could end that coverage.

But… Here’s the first qualifier.

But a spokesman for Union Pacific, the nation’s largest rail line with more than 50,000 workers, said yesterday that the coverage would continue.

Emphasis added, because that sounds so implausible.

“We’re not going to take it away,” the spokesman, Mark Davis, said.

Why not? Does this make any sense? Being the New York Times, the article doesn’t explore that question. It talks politics.

The two appellate judges who ruled in favor of Union Pacific, Raymond W. Gruender III and Pasco M. Bowman II, were both appointed by Republican presidents, Judge Gruender by President Bush, and Judge Bowman by President Ronald Reagan.

The dissenter, Judge Kermit E. Bye, was appointed by President Bill Clinton, a Democrat.

The Times does not quote the judges who ruled in favor of Union Pacific, those appointed by President Reagan.

But they cite comments by the dissenter.

“When one looks at the medical effect of Union Pacific’s failure to provide insurance coverage for prescription contraception, the inequality of coverage is clear,” Judge Bye said in his dissent. “This failure only medically affects females, as they bear all of the health consequences of unplanned pregnancies.”

Bingo. The hidden agenda of this lawsuit is to start the process of trying to mandate the coverage of abortion. That’s where this is headed, so expect to see more efforts like this.

And, incidentally, Judge Bye might want to note that Union Pacific apparently will not ‘fail’ to cover prescription contraception, if that company spokesman is speaking for them.