From Stark
This just in:
THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
February 10, 2012
FACT SHEET: Women’s Preventive Services and Religious Institutions
Thanks to the Affordable Care Act, most health insurance plans will cover women’s preventive services, including contraception, without charging a co-pay or deductible beginning in August, 2012. This new law will save money for millions of Americans and ensure Americans nationwide get the high-quality care they need to stay healthy.
Today, President Obama will announce that his Administration will implement a policy that accommodates religious liberty while protecting the health of women. Today, nearly 99 percent of all women have used contraception at some point in their lives, but more than half of all women between the ages of 18-34 struggle to afford it.
Under the new policy to be announced today, women will have free preventive care that includes contraceptive services no matter where she works. The policy also ensures that if a woman works for religious employers with objections to providing contraceptive services as part of its health plan, the religious employer will not be required to provide contraception coverage, but her insurance company will be required to offer contraceptive care free of charge.
The new policy ensures women can get contraception without paying a co-pay and addresses important concerns raised by religious groups by ensuring that objecting religious employers will not have to provide contraceptive coverage or refer women to organizations that provide contraception. Background on this policy is included below:
· Section 2713 of the Affordable Care Act, the Administration adopted new guidelines that will require most private health plans to cover preventive services for women without charging a co-pay starting on August 1, 2012. These preventive services include well women visits, domestic violence screening, and contraception, and all were recommended to the Secretary of Health and Human Services by the independent Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Science.
· Today, the Obama Administration will publish final rules in the Federal Register that:
o Exempts churches, other houses of worship, and similar organizations from covering contraception on the basis of their religious objections.
o Establishes a one year transition period for religious organizations while this policy is being implemented.
· The President will also announce that his Administration will propose and finalize a new regulation during this transition year to address the religious objections of the non-exempted religious organizations. The new regulation will require insurance companies to cover contraception if the non-exempted religious organization chooses not to. Under the policy:
o Religious organizations will not have to provide contraceptive coverage or refer their employees to organizations that provide contraception.
o Religious organizations will not be required to subsidize the cost of contraception.
o Contraception coverage will be offered to women by their employers’ insurance companies directly, with no role for religious employers who oppose contraception.
o Insurance companies will be required to provide contraception coverage to these women free of charge.
Covering contraception saves money for insurance companies by keeping women healthy and preventing spending on other health services. For example, there was no increase in premiums when contraception was added to the Federal Employees Health Benefit System and required of non-religious employers in Hawaii. One study found that covering contraception lowered premiums by 10 percent or more.
Amazing what re-election does for one’s thinking but what happens when re-election isn’t an influence no more?
AFY!!theheelotsheepdog!!!
SL methinks it was more of the democratic scream that got his attention:
Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., who faces re-election in November, sent a letter to Obama complaining that the mandate is a “direct affront to religious freedoms.”
Rep. Dan Lipinski, D-Ill., said in January that the decision “violates the long-standing tradition of protection for conscience rights in federal law.”
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/02/08/some-democrats-break-from-obama-on-new-contraception-policy-as-gop-vows-to/#ixzz1m0bp4oZi
AFY!!theheelotsheepdog!!!
“The “compromise” the President announced today is that contraception coverage “will be offered to women by their employers’ insurance companies directly, with no role for religious employers who oppose contraception. Insurance companies will be required to provide contraception coverage to these women free of charge.”
There are only two problems with the Administration’s so-called compromise:
(1) It doesn’t remedy the moral and religious liberty objections to this mandate, and
(2) As a practical matter, it simply doesn’t work….
….its so-called compromise appears to be an unworkable non-solution—just like the rest of Obamacare.
http://blog.heritage.org/2012/02/10/president-obamas-unworkable-non-solution-on-conscience/
AFY!!theheelotsheepdog!!!
“Obama as Henry VIII, he’ll “accommodate” Catholic concerns, for now
Obamacare’s contraceptive mandate problem isn’t going away. If anything, the backlash is building as more people realize just how much of a power grab it really is. Because what Obama is doing here isn’t limited to this one assault on our religious freedom. Oh no. He’s assuming the role of America’s Henry VIII, and dictating to the Church how it will operate. Or else….
Our Founding Fathers fought for freedom, for liberty, for justice. They wouldn’t recognize our current federal government. Or rather, they’d recognize it as a tyrannical monster which dwarfs the long train of abuses and usurpations perpetuated by King George. They’d see that Obama’s Object evinces a design to reduce us under absolute Despotism. For surely he has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance. And imposed Taxes on us without our Consent….
http://wyblog.us/blog/religion/obama-as-henry-viii.html
AFY!!theheelotsheepdog!!!
Me thinks he doth protest too much
When it comes to eating out substances we all got to take a stand, don’t ya know!
AFY!!theheelotsheepdog!!!
Steve, the “parties” in question here included every American with health insurance. If you don’t think slapping a new mandate for “free” is going to raise costs for the rest of us, you must have failed Economics 101. Insurance companies can’t just cover something for “free”– the money has to come from somewhere.
Obamacare is a total economic – and ethical – farce. All the blather about folks getting stuck for “free riders” and how this was supposed to “fix” the problem. It fixes nothing – it just institutionalizes free-riders. Way more people than ever are going to get a free ride, carried on the backs of responsible people who were already taking care of themselves.
Of course there’s no free lunch. I’ve heard that the percentage of “those on the receiving end” now exceed the percentage of those of us carrying the load. We are in big, big trouble. And the Big O talks about “what’s fair”?? Major crock.
Gerge Will on “This Week” with George Stephanopoulos:
You asked the question, ‘How did this come about?’ George, this is what liberalism looks like. This is what the progressive state does. It tries to break all the institutions of civil society, all the institutions that mediate between the individual and the state. They have to break them to the saddle of the state…
AFY!!theheelotsheepdog!!!
I like a lot of what George Will writes. But this time he’s full of hogwash. This is a controversy about who pays for the birth control pills. It’s a bit hysterical to inflate that to an attempt to “break all the institutions of civil society.”
Seems to me I’ve heard Republicans attacking Obama for policies that benefit and strengthen labor unions. Aren’t labor unions “institutions of civil society,” like them or not?
Disagree John; this is not about birth control pills but it is about the First Amendment, IMHO!
More to come!
AFY!!theheelotsheepdog!!!
“Cardinal-designate Timothy Dolan said, “The federal government should do what it’s traditionally done since July 4, 1776, namely back out of intruding into the internal life of a church.”
…Presidents of Catholic universities insist they will reject “this religious intolerance and will not bow down before government regulations that are manifestly unjust.” The National Association of Evangelicals put out a statement saying, “Freedom of conscience is a sacred gift from God, not a grant from the state. No government has the right to compel its citizens to violate their conscience. The HHS rules trample on our most cherished freedoms and set a dangerous precedent.”
http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2012/02/09/obama-attack-on-religious-liberty/
Methinks when it comes to “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…” there is no compromise!
AFY!!theheelotsheepdog!!!
“Experience should teach us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the Government’s purposes are beneficent.” Supreme Court Justice Louis D. Brandeis
In one of the boldest, most audacious moves ever made by a President of the United States, President Barack Obama is on the brink of successfully rendering moot the very first clause of the First Amendment to the Constitution: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof” (emphasis added)….
I am not a Catholic, nor do I believe in the Church’s opposition to contraception. But I pray that the leadership of the Catholic Church will have the faith and courage to stand for its core beliefs and use all of its moral power and political influence to defeat the President’s edict. I pray they will reach out across the political spectrum to people of all faiths, agnostics and atheists in the name of religious freedom and individual liberty. By so doing, they, and the institution of the Catholic Church, will have my love and respect for the rest of my life.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/charleskadlec/2012/02/13/the-audacity-of-power-president-obama-vs-the-catholic-church/
AFY!!theheelotsheepdog!!!
Certainly there are First Amendment issues here, and I’m not dismissing those. I don’t think Obama is either–he’s trying to work out a mutually acceptable compromise. At the end of the day, if there IS some rule that covers birth control for employees at Catholic institutions, I think the First Amendment will not be reduced to a smoking ruin. Freedom of religion has limits under current law. So does freedom of speech and the right to bear arms.
I will not argue that there are limits to religious rights but what I am arguing is that what Obama is doing in this particular situation is outside of the limits of government as intended by the constitution. Personally I think it is exactly this kind of thing that will doom Obama care once it gets to the Supremes.
AFY!!theheelotsheepdog!!!
When you consider that most Catholic institutions – particularly its hospitals and clinics – are “self insured,” Obama’s claim that “insurance companies” will provide these services for free was totally disingenous. Small wonder they’re furious – they ought to be. The “consession” was no concession at all, it was a slap in the face.