“War On Contraception”: GOP Lawmakers Seek To Deny Coverage To Others That They Enjoy
Republican congressional leaders are entering the fray over the Obama administration’s weeks-old decision to require employer-provided health insurance to cover contraception, including for some religious organizations that don’t employ a majority of people of that faith. The decision has been a hot topic on the campaign trail in recent days, but today, Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) took the House floor to slam it, calling it an “unambiguous attack on religious freedom in our country” and vowed to repeal the regulation. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) had a similarly sharp indictmentyesterday. Watch it:
But missed in this debate is the fact Boehner and McConnell’s own health insurance plans covers contraception, something they now want to deny to others.
Since 1998, every insurer participating in the Federal Employees Health Benefit Program (FEHBP) — including members of Congress — has had access to comprehensive contraceptive coverage, including emergency contraception, such as the morning after pill. Republican lawmakers now want to prevent access to the coverage they enjoy to employees of religious organizations who may not be of that religion or who disagree with anti-contraception doctrine (89 percent of Catholics say contraception decision should be theirs, not the church’s).
By: Alex Seitz-Wald, Think Progress, February 8, 2012
Hypocrisy: Republican Senators Including Snowe And Collins Co-Sponsored Federal Contraception Mandate In 2001
Republicans have gone to war against President Obama’s regulation requiring employers and insurers to provide contraception coverage, portraying the measure as a “government takeover” of health care and pledging to repeal the rule in Congress. The measure, which is part of the Affordable Care Act, says that companies offering coverage must also provide birth control insurance (but exempts houses of worship and nonprofits primarily employing and serving those of the same faith).
The Obama measure closely resembles state laws providing equity in insurance coverage for contraception in six states and actually offers far more conscience protections than previous Congressional efforts to expand women’s access to birth control. For instance, a 2001 bill co-sponsored by Republicans Sens. Olympia Snowe (ME), Susan Collins (ME), Lincoln Chafee (RI), Gordon Smith (OR), John Warner (VA), Arlen Specter (PA) — S. 104 — sought to establish parity for contraceptive prescriptions within the context of coverage already guaranteed by insurance plans, but offered no opt-out clause for religious groups who opposed contraception:
SEC. 714. STANDARDS RELATING TO BENEFITS FOR CONTRACEPTIVES.
`(a) REQUIREMENTS FOR COVERAGE- A group health plan, and a health insurance issuer providing health insurance coverage in connection with a group health plan, may not–
`(1) exclude or restrict benefits for prescription contraceptive drugs or devices approved by the Food and Drug Administration, or generic equivalents approved as substitutable by the Food and Drug Administration, if such plan provides benefits for other outpatient prescription drugs or devices; or
`(2) exclude or restrict benefits for outpatient contraceptive services if such plan provides benefits.
“Women shouldn’t be held hostage by virtue of where they live,” Snowe told a Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee hearing in September of 2001. “It simply is not fair.” “All we’re saying in this legislation is that if health insurance plans provide coverage for prescription drugs that that coverage has to extend to FDA-approved prescription contraceptives. It’s that simple.”
At the time, religious groups also raised concerns about the measure and Snowe promised to add a “conscience clause” that is similar to the exemption included in Maine’s law. Incidentally, that language is very similar to the conscience protections included in Obama’s regulation.
By: Igor Volsky, Think Progress, February 8, 2012
Majority Of Catholics Believe Employers Should Cover Birth Control
More than 150 Catholic bishops have criticized President Barack Obama’s approval of a law that will require religious organizations to provide contraception coverage in employees’ insurance offerings.
But a new study by the Public Religion Research Institute shows that Catholics overwhelmingly support the new rules. The poll reveals that six out of ten Catholics believe employers should be required to provide their employees with healthcare plans that cover contraception, while 55 percent of Americans at large supported the new requirement.
White evangelicals opposed the new regulation more than any other religious group, with 56 percent saying it imposed on religious freedom.
Nearly 75 percent of Democrats approve of the new reform while only 36 percent of Republicans support it.
The new law is part of the president’s healthcare overhaul, and will make it mandatory for religious colleges, non-profits and hospitals to offer employees insurance packages that include contraception coverage. While some organizations will be granted an adjustment period, eventual failure to provide coverage to employees could result in penalties
A large proportion of Catholics polled did say, however, that the government should not require churches to provide their employees with insurance covering birth control.
Nearly three quarters of white evangelicals also agreed that churches should remain exempt from the new law.
By: Lauren Fox, Washington Whispers, U. S. News and World Report, February 7, 2012
“Oop’s, He Did It Again”: When Romney Agreed With Obama On Contraception
For months, Republican presidential candidates have been eager, if not desperate, to accuse President Obama of waging a “war on religion.” Rick Perry got the ball rolling quite a while ago, but his more successful rivals have picked up on the same line.
The problem for the GOP candidates has been substantive: they knew they wanted to accuse Obama of being hostile towards faith communities, but they couldn’t explain why. Republicans saw value in the attack — the drive to paint the president as “The Other” has been a constant for four years — but they had absolutely no idea how to bolster the smear.
This week, Mitt Romney seems to have settled on a policy to match the attack: the Obama administration’s decision to require coverage of contraception as preventive care under the Affordable Care Act is, according to the former governor, an “attack on religious liberty.”
Romney told voters in Colorado yesterday that “churches and the institutions they run” will “have to provide for their employees, free of charge, contraceptives, morning-after pills — in other words abortive pills and the like — at no cost.”
As a substantive matter, Romney’s lying. The administration’s policy already exempts churches and other houses of worship and “doesn’t require any individual or employer to violate a religious belief — it simply ensures that their employees with different beliefs have the same access to birth control as all other women.”
But as a matter of consistency, Romney has another problem: he’s not only lying; he’s also denouncing Obama for adopting a policy similar to one Romney used to support.
Mitt Romney accused President Obama this week of ordering “religious organizations to violate their conscience,” referring to a White House decision that requires all health plans – even those covering employees at Catholic hospitals, charities, and colleges – to provide free birth control. But a review of Romney’s tenure as Massachusetts governor shows that he once took a similar step.
Oops.
While Romney was on the attack yesterday, condemning the idea of requiring religious institutions to provide emergency contraception, as governor, a previous iteration of Romney required all Massachusetts hospitals, including Catholic hospitals, to provide emergency contraception to rape victims.
Some Catholic leaders now point to inconsistency in Romney’s criticism of the president and characterize his new stance as politically expedient, even as they welcome it.
“The initial injury to Catholic religious freedom came not from the Obama administration but from the Romney administration,” said C.J. Doyle, executive director of the Catholic Action League of Massachusetts. “President Obama’s plan certainly constitutes an assault on the constitutional rights of Catholics, but I’m not sure Governor Romney is in a position to assert that, given his own very mixed record on this.” […]
“Governor Romney afterwards lamented that and campaigned around the country as someone in favor of religious freedom and traditional morality,” Doyle said. “He is very consistent at working both sides of the street on the same issue at the same time. His record on this issue has been one of very cynical and tactical manipulation.”
It’s the latest in a series of examples of Romney 2.0 interfering with the ambitions of Romney 5.0.
Many Catholic Universities, Hospitals Already Cover Contraception In Health Insurance Plans
Catholic leaders and the GOP presidential candidates have intentionally distorted the Obama administration’s new rule requiring employers and insurers to provide reproductive health benefits at no additional cost sharing. Conservatives are seeking a way to politically unite Republican voters around a social issue and portray the regulation as a big government intrusion into religious liberties. In reality, the mandate is modeled on existing rules in six states, exempts houses of worship and other religious nonprofits that primarily employ and serve people of faith, and offers employers a transitional period of one year to determine how best to comply with the rule.
It’s also nothing new. Twenty-eight states already require organizations that offer prescription insurance to cover contraception and since 98 percent of Catholic women use birth control, many Catholic institutions offer the benefit to their employees. For instance, a Georgetown University spokesperson told ThinkProgress yesterday that employees “have access to health insurance plans offered and designed by national providers to a national pool. These plans include coverage for birth control.”
Similarly, an informal survey conducted by Our Sunday Visitor found that many Catholic colleges have purchased insurance plans that provide contraception benefits:
University of Scranton, for example, appears to specifically cover contraception. The University of San Francisco offers employees two health plans, both of which cover abortion, contraception and sterilization…Also problematic is the Jesuit University of Scranton. One of its health insurance plans, the First Priority HMO, lists a benefit of “contraceptives when used for the purpose of birth control.”
DePaul University in Chicago covers birth control in both its fully insured HMO plan and its self-insured PPO plan and excludes “elective abortion,” said spokesman John Holden, adding that the 1,800 employee-university responded to a complaint from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission several years ago and added artificial contraception as a benefit to its Blue Cross PPO.
Christian Brothers University in Memphis, Tenn., offers employee health insurance via the Tennessee Independent Colleges and Universities Association, a consortium of Christian Bible and other private college and universities. Its plan excludes abortion, but probably covers artificial contraception as a prescription drug, said C. Gregg Conroy, the executive director of the TICUA Benefit Consortium.
Boston College, the six former Caritas Christi Catholic hospitals in Massachusetts, and other Catholic organizations that are located in one of the 28 states that already require employers to provide contraception benefits could have self-insured or stopped offering prescription drug coverage to avoid the mandate — but didn’t do so. Instead, they — like many Catholic hospitals and health care insurers around the country — chose to meet the needs of the overwhelming majority of Catholic women and offer these much needed services.
By: Igor Volsky, Think Progress, February 7, 2012
Share This Blog
Unknown Feed- An error has occurred; the feed is probably down. Try again later.
mykeystrokes.com 