By: Jeffrey Klein
Examiner.com
President Barack Obama was brought to his knees today, by a religious barrage led by the Catholic Church, the entire Republican Party and even dozens of dissenting Democrat lawmakers like Sen. John Kerry (D-MA), who were fleeing his side over his controversial “free contraception” mandate under Obamacare–because it infringed upon Catholic doctrine in particular, and religious freedom in general.
As a result, Obama backed off his plan requiring religious organizations to provide free contraceptive coverage, shifting the responsibility to insurers in a move he claimed would preserve religious liberty as well as “basic fairness” for women who want the coverage, according to Ed Henry’s FOXNews article today.
“Under the rule, women will still have access to free preventive care that includes contraceptive services, no matter where they work — that core principle remains,” Obama said. But he added, “Religious organizations won’t have to pay for these services and no religious institution will have to provide these services directly.”
Effectively, this will provide religious organizations an “opt out” from the mandate, by requiring insurers to offer a plan that does not include contraceptive care in their contracts with nonprofit religious groups. But, the insurers would still be required to make contraception available free of charge to women anyway.
Simply put, this is just another glaring example of “tax and spend” Liberal “wealth redistribution” at work, whose objective is not to provide everyone with “a fair shot”–but rather with an “equal outcome.”
And, as a bonus to the Liberal Democrat voter base, it also represents a partial circumvention of the federal regulation they so hate, which bars the use of federal funds to provide abortions–by instead using an Obamacare mandate, which confiscates private funds to accomplish it.
The idea of the federal government being required to step in and provide “access” to birth control pills is a total farce–[adult] women have had unfettered access to them since shortly after May 9, 1960, when they first received FDA approval for public distribution.
Forcing insurance companies to include “free” contraception services under employer plans, behind the thin veil of “preventative medicine,” is not insurance–it is forcing the company into “buying a claim.”
An estimated 12 million women in the U.S. use birth control, costing anywhere from $160 to $490 per year, the maximum impact of which, if the trend toward access is left unchecked, could add a whopping $5.88 billion per year to national healthcare costs.
As Democrats in Congress continue to expand the mandated coverages, is it no wonder the cost of health insurance continues to increase at greater than the inflation rate–and, when the populace gets up in arms over their skyrocketing monthly premium increases, these cowards blame big, greedy insurance companies.
It’s official, “access” is obviously the new Democrat “code word” for “free,” which is now showing up in every mainstream media narrative–leaving people of good character and integrity feeling “pillaged“–again.
Copyright (c) 2012 by Jeffrey Klein
