Caritas Christi Health Care, the financially challenged Catholic hospital system founded by the Archdiocese of Boston, is abruptly ending its joint venture with a Missouri-based health insurer at the insistence of Cardinal Sean P. O’Malley, who has decided that the relationship represented too much of an entanglement between Catholic hospitals and abortion providers.
The change will have no effect on patient care, because Caritas will continue to participate in the state-subsidized program, called Commonwealth Care, but now simply as one of many healthcare providers treating patients, and no longer as a co-owner of an insurance venture.
Caritas’s withdrawal from the insurance venture, just days before it will start providing care to low-income residents as part of the state’s efforts to establish near-universal health coverage here, is a vindication of sorts for a variety of conservative Catholic critics of the cardinal, who have been arguing angrily that it would be “evil’’ for Caritas to collaborate with a health insurer that covers abortion services.
The dramatic development, announced last night, is a setback for Caritas because it represents the undoing of one of the steps its new chief executive, Dr. Ralph de la Torre, had announced as part of his effort to turn around the hospital system’s finances. It was not immediately clear last night what the financial impact of the change is on Caritas, but the decision is a stark and public reminder from O’Malley to de la Torre and the general public that moral concerns will trump monetary issues at Catholic hospitals.
Centene Corp., the Missouri-based insurer, will continue to participate in Commonwealth Care, starting Wednesday. The role of Caritas as a provider, in connection with Centene, will be analogous to the role it plays when providing care to people covered by private insurers such as Blue Cross, and it will not provide any services that violate Catholic teaching.