The Supreme Court decided decades ago that access to birth control is a constitutional right. Now, the Obama administration’s Department of Health and Human Services has decided that access to “free” birth control is a right, too. Under new HHS regulations, which the department is authorized to create under Obamacare, insurance plans will be required to cover birth control — including the morning-after pill “ella,” which seems to work as an abortifacient in some cases — with no co-pay. The rule will take effect Aug. 1, 2012, or later.
Of course, insurance companies don’t provide anything for “free.” Any time they cover a new service or eliminate co-pays, they charge higher premiums to make up the lost revenue. So the department is forcing people who do not use birth control to subsidize it, through higher premiums, for people who do.
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The new regulations raise other concerns as well. The birth-control mandate is not spelled out within Obamacare itself; instead, the law forces insurers to cover “preventive medicine,” and authorizes unelected bureaucrats to define that term. Further, it is unclear whether the mandate will cover minors in states that require parental consent for birth control. The policy does allow for some religious exemptions, but they will not include many religious health-care providers.
Also, it’s difficult to see what problem this is supposed to address. There is no evidence whatsoever that under current law, women or couples have trouble affording birth control. Condoms are cheap, and many government agencies and private organizations give them away for free. Private insurers cover birth-control pills, albeit with a co-pay, and state Medicaid programs typically cover them for the poor. No research indicates that making birth control even less expensive than it is now will decrease unwanted pregnancies or abortion rates.
Conservatives warned that the passage of Obamacare presaged a government takeover of Americans’ health-care decisions. These new regulations constitute further evidence: They interfere in the market, and they were formulated by unelected bureaucrats. They are yet one more reason that Obamacare deserves to be repealed.
muslims, of course, will be exempt from paying-in, because they don't use birth control...as well, they love to reproduce at rates higher than the indigenous population...that way, in 100 years, there will be more of them than anyone else...
Actually as far HHS is concerned abortion is a right and that is where they are headed with this initial step. Government provided (or mandated) abortion is their goal and this is their opening gun. Remember abortion is a form of birth control.
Small but incrmental steps to their leftist goals.
We cooperate with these people on things like this at our peril.
You are confusing right of access to something vs a right. The previous author who said that HHS considers abortion as a right, was trying to convey that HHS thinks abortions should be provided to everyone free of charge and that it should be provided for by the government. I could go into greater detail as to the diferences, but I really don't have the time. Suffice to say it is something you have to be given. Such as to common rights Freedom of Religion and Freedom of the press. You have to be "given" the right to practice your religion as long as it doesn't infringe upon the rights of other.
Most of these rights are to keep government from interfering in our lives. Free abortion is not a right; access to an abortion is. Though the decision many on the left will agree was very tortured reasoning.
To sum up my argument just because you are guaranteed the right to something does not mean the government has to provide it. For example say chose the Religion of Golden Idols, would you expect the government to provide me the gold?
The right to choose an abortion is the law, but you mistake the argument as a legal one, when in fact the author's point was, in this regard, economic (rights versus choices). To be more clear:
Abortion is a SERVICES which is provided by a doctor. What the author is upset with, is that the government is now trying to make abortion a FREE service which your INSURANCE company will be required to pay for, and, secondly, that abortion is a service that, under Obamacare, those who may be morally against abortions, will now be required to subsidize via their own insurance premiums.
Notice that the main argument here is that government is, via this law, once again forcing private citizens to do business with a private entity. In this case, the government is forcing private citizens to pay a private entity to subsidize an elective medical procedure that the person paying (via premiums) may have religious or moral objections to. In other words, in ways that restrict our rights under the First Amendment.
*As full disclosure: I am pro-choice and believe Roe vs. Wade was an ill-conceived and politically motivated decision. The Federal government should stay out of the abortion debate, it is one that belongs in the state legislatures*
This is only the first step. Once women's health "rights" are determined they'll start defining men's "rights" and then the poor's, the minorities, etc. until everyone's policy is the same, thus government controled health care. That is their ultimate goal.
the leftist totalitarians know what they are doing.
treating people like animals make the simple, the stupid, and the ignorant think of themselves as animals.
animals are much easier to control than free and thoughtful human beings.
it is not that complex. the root debate in the world today is whether society benefits by demeaning and dehumanizing its members.
the leftist totalitarians, due to their egotistical devotion to their own intelligence, believe that the less people respect themselves the better able the government will be to control them according to the totalitarians' designs.
on the other side are all of those who believe that human dignity requires the government to be honest about the effects of treating oneself like an animal.
when we treat ourselves like animals, our free will and intellectual ability are diminished. by diminishing the free will and intellects of a society's members, that society is choosing a downward spiral on growth, productivity and stability.
the true human spirit can be repressed for only a certain length of time before it erupts in a deliberate and forceful movement to return to freedom for all.
This move is designed to further increase the cost of insurance, in order to gain support for a complete government takeover of healthcare. You'll see more of this.
The left's plan is:
1. Burden the insurance industry with required coverage of unnecessary items.
2. Continue frivilous lawsuits which increase premiums (legal fees, awards, defensive medicine)
3. Complain about the rising cost of healthcare
4. Blame greedy insurance company executives,
5. Say that a government takeover is the only solution to control costs.
Should my insurance carrier be required to provide me with my high blood pressure medicine with no co-pay? If not, what's the distinction? Is it because preventing pregnancy is more important than preventing heart attacks? Because high blood pressure affects both genders but only women take birth control pills?
I'm not sure the administration's long-term plan is as complex as some suggest. It may be as simple as this: Access to contraceptives is good, so access to free contraceptives is even better. Plus we really need the support of young women voters, and voters love free stuff, so this will help keep us in power. It's another way to take money from one group and give it to another to curry their favor.
This move is cynical pandering for female voters in The President's bid for re-election. He knows if he doesn't have an overwhelming turnout by females, he'll be Matt Lauer's first guest in 2013
Does anyone remember the President saying, "If you like your plan, you can keep it." Well, my plan required co-pays for any covered medication. So I guess, due to the decrees of the President's regulators, my plan no longer exists as it did before, making the President a liar (as he was well aware when he told that lie again, and again, and again).
"No research indicates that making birth control even less expensive than it is now will decrease unwanted pregnancies or abortion rates."
Guttmacher Institute: "Unintended Pregnancy and Taxpayer Spending" External Link
Could you guys at least do your homework? A simple Google search refuted a major point you attempted to make. Research DOES exist showing "that making birth control even less expensive than it is now will decrease unwanted pregnancies or abortion rates." Let's at least have an honest debate about this. *sigh*
Question; does ANYONE here actually know how insurance works?
because if you DID, you would that birth control is already covered to some degree by many insurance providers. You cannot claim premiums will go up at the rate you THINK they will. If everyone got a say in exactly what kind of coverage other people got, insurance would be impossible.
I find it interesting that people complain about this without doing RESEARCH.
Does everyone here believe that women should have control over their fertility and how many children they have? Is it REALISTIC to expect them all to just 'keep their legs closed'? That's pathetically ignorant and impossible and you all KNOW that. Especially when you consider the fact that most insurers also cover Viagra. Is THAT fair? Is that equal?
Our government already takes tax dollars for Planned Parenthood, and organizations around the world that promote abortion and so-called "birth control" (so-called because it is actually no control, no birth -- as per GKChesterton).
The government has been coercing Catholic universities to pay for contraception (Belmont Abbey College being the prime example) through manipulation of the Federal student loan program.
And now this: Catholic hospitals will be required to provide coverage in insurance plans for contraception and for the contra-gestational abortifacient "Ella" (morning-after pill). The religious exemptions under the proposed ukase *(dictate, using a Soviet term) will exempt no one except for the house-keepers at priests' rectories.
What is going on here is a steady erosion of religious freedom, pure and simple. It is odious that Catholics' tax dollars are subsidizing the most aggressive pro-abortion and pro-contraception domestic and foreign policies. It is even more so that our government is now proposing to coerce private, religious-based organizations into material cooperation with evil.
Furthermore, to the correspondent ("relaxok") who says that abortion "is a right, it's the law": NO, abortion is NOT a "right,'' not a moral right. The juridic sanctioning of the "sacrament" of abortion is itself illegal -- Roe v. Wade is, indeed, illegal. God's law trumps any human so-called "legal right."
Indeed, abortion -- including those induced by the morning-after pill, and those induced by the mini-pills (supposed "contraception" is often actually micro-chemical very early contragestational in effect -- a very early abortion) so commonly used nowadays -- is the crime of all time. It is the holocaust -- yes, "holocaust" -- of untold millions of pre-born human beings.
The Roe v. Wade decision, I would argue, is in fact the death knell of our Constitution, because with that decision the Left in this country realized that "anything goes."
That the Supreme Court should have decided that unborn babies are not "persons" under the so-called "law" is the LIE that says, in effect, that "slavery is freedom," "war is peace," etc. Once this lie was enshrined in our juridic order, no rights remain safe.
Indeed, I would argue that, within a generation, unless Roe v. Wade should be overturned, the Environmental Protection Agency will argue for forcible population control measures under the guise that the supposed necessity of controlling our so-called "over-population" trumps any so-called "right" to reproductive freedom, up to and including the enforcement of forced sterilizations and forced abortions -- just like in Red China.
Why, dear readers, do you think that our Left in this country so admires and wishes to emulate China's one-child policy? Why have we already been witnesses to so many of the West's "elites" advocating for population control measures enforced at the point of the government's guns? Indeed, many on the "Right" are advocates for coercive measures such as reduced tax "breaks" for large families.
Indeed, the supposed "duty" of the government to force the free provision of contraception to everyone who wishes will soon morph into the government's "duty to protect the environment" from alleged over-population. If contraception and abortion remain, under the law, not only licit but a right, then it will soon be the government's "duty" to force these measures on an unwilling populace by virtue of the competing "duty" to protect the environment.
Don't believe me? Then, dear readers, I ask: how do you believe Red China justifies its brutal enforcement of its one-child policy?
For you readers who consider Obama and his ilk to be Marxists, is it such a stretch to believe that his ultimate goal is to control every aspect of our lives, including our reproductive "privilege"?
Yes, indeed: look for the Government (Big Brother) soon to begin talking up the idea that having as many children as one desires is not a right, but a "privilege," to be licensed when and if the State decides to do so. Indeed, isn't this already how many on both the Left AND the Right talk about people who have "too many babies"? Who the "H---" are we -- Left or Right -- to dictate how many babies people have? Search your consciences, Conservatives, when you talk about welfare babies.
No, I'm not talking about endless welfare benefits for endless kids at taxpayer expense (I am against current LBJ-Great Society policies like the rest of you) -- but I am talking about the often knee-jerk "tick" that I see reflected in conservative media advocating the forced sterilization of the underclasses.
You readers need to realize: your own impetus to advocate for "responsible" parenting -- THE boy and THE girl, one of each per couple -- this advocacy is itself a bigoted, anti-life view that turns around to bite you when, finally, the Government decides to FORCE these policies down our throats, with NO regard to religious or any other scruples. This is exactly what has happened in Red China, and it is EXACTLY what WILL happen in the USA within our lifetimes. BEWARE!!
Not every NR reader opposes the health reform law. I am conservative and I think its fine, though not perfect.
We can object to bad policy like free birth control and still protect people who need major health care and have expensive conditions.
Some Republicans and conservatives disagree on the death penalty, abortion, and gay marriage but are still allowed to call themselves conservative.
It's a health care law that requires us to buy insurance, but you are so convinced about "left wing" plotting.
I also disagree with some of the law's requirements, but I would not repeal a law that helps people with pre-existing conditions, and reduces the likelihoood that people will have to queue up at the ER to get care. By the way, our tax dollars pay for that care, single-payer style.
Conservatives need to get into the position to make sure our ideas are built into the law. we do not have to repeal it to do this.
I am increasingly disappointed at how "conservative" types can leave people in difficult health circumstances and be so hostile to a law that attempts to help them.
