The Denver City Council questioned the city’s three health-insurance providers Wednesday about employees’ coverage in sensitive areas such as termination of pregnancy, end-of-life decisions and the rights of gay partners and parents.
Representatives of United Healthcare and Denver Health appeared at the meeting, but Councilwoman Carol Boigon said she was most interested in how management changes at Catholic-run Exempla St. Joseph Hospital and Good Samaritan Medical Center would affect the city employees covered by Kaiser Permanente.
Boigon said her inquiry was made to inform employees — about half of whom opt for Kaiser Permanente coverage — before they choose insurers during open enrollment Oct. 4-22.
Boigon asked about policies on relieving the suffering of the terminally ill, honoring end-of-life directives, reproductive-health services and the rights of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender members.
Dr. Jandel Allen-Davis, vice president of Kaiser Permanente government relations, said the company, which partners with 15 hospitals in Colorado, has a nationally recognized program for managing the pain and symptoms of advanced illnesses and for hospice care for the dying.
The Sisters of Charity of Leavenworth Health System took over sole sponsorship of Exempla Healthcare’s three-hospital system at the end of 2009, which means that Good Samaritan and Exempla Lutheran have recently come under Catholic ethical and religious directives, Allen-Davis said. Nothing has changed at St. Joseph, Kaiser Permanente’s anchor hospital, which has abided by the directives since its beginning more than 100 years ago.
“In all the time I’ve been there, I’ve never seen anyone hit that wall,” Allen-Davis said in response to Boigon’s question about what would happen if a person’s medical directive conflicted with Catholic moral principle.
Conflicts do arise in reproductive care, Allen-Davis said. However, a pregnancy may be indirectly terminated at a Catholic hospital as a result of a medical emergency that necessitates performing a medical procedure to save the mother.
In other cases, Kaiser will work with patients to get reproductive care at alternative hospitals if a service is not provided at St. Joseph, Allen- Davis said. One example would be a tubal ligation, she said, which would be arranged instead at Boulder Community Hospital or HealthOne Swedish Medical Center.
Boigon also asked whether seriously ill infants or miscarried fetuses would be baptized at Catholic hospitals without parental consent. “No,” Exempla Healthcare vice president Christine Woolsey told The Denver Post.
