The most baffling thing about Obamacare’s new contraception mandate is why it is necessary at all.
Agree or disagree, one at least could understand if President Obama used Obamacare’s brass knuckles to beat insurance companies into covering some new-but-exorbitant drug that prevented Americans from suddenly succumbing to a rare, highly fatal disease. While there are more attractive alternatives to federal brute force, no one wants to see people drop dead for lack of a pill or powder.
But Obama’s mandate on Catholic institutions and other faith-based organizations involves precisely none of this.
The mandate originally ordered these groups to pay for contraceptives and even abortifacients via their employees’ health-insurance plans. After an enormous controversy erupted, Obama on Friday unveiled an “accommodation” in which he snatched the bill for contraceptives from the Catholic organizations, wrestled insurance companies to the ground, and then stuffed the birth-control bill into their pockets.
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“Women will still have access to free preventive care that includes contraception, no matter where they work,” Obama barked. However, “the insurance company — not the hospital, not the charity — will be required to reach out and offer . . . contraceptive care free, without co-pays and without hassles.”
Insurance companies must have been startled to find themselves at the muzzle end of federal police power. They now face a brand-new, unfunded mandate whose costs they surely will pass along to their entire clientele, thus boosting the insurance rates that Obamacare was supposed to reduce.
Utterly perplexing in all of this is why Team Obama ever saw this regulation as necessary.
Is any adult American female unable to secure birth-control pills if she wants them? Is there even one American woman who cannot walk, bike, ride a bus, or ask a loved one or neighbor to drive her to a local drug store to pick up the Pill, contraceptive foam, intra-uterine devices, or other birth-control products?
And if any woman happens to be insured by a Catholic organization or other anti-birth-control group, is it too much to ask her either to find contraceptive coverage elsewhere or go work somewhere that offers such insurance?
Here is another idea: American women who lack birth-control coverage can buy it themselves. BirthControl.com offers one-month supplies of popular pills and patches for roughly $35 to $50. Are American women without contraceptive insurance incapable of salting away $50 per month to enjoy pregnancy-free sex with the men in their lives? Given the joys of sex, is $1.66 per day an unbearable burden requiring massive federal intervention?
“Emergency contraception” pills, such as Plan B and Next Choice run from $35 to $60. This is costlier than cough drops, but hardly a sum that demands Santa Obama’s involvement.
And if even these sums are too high, Planned Parenthood operates about 800 women’s health centers in all 50 states and Washington, D.C. Its staffers are eager to help women prevent and even terminate pregnancies. Planned Parenthood prices its services on a sliding scale. Low-income women pay less than those with heavier purses. Why must Obama compete with Planned Parenthood?
Now we see the power in ObamaCare.
Why nibble at the corners of the Constitution, when it can be dismantled in chunks?
To bad Congress stopped trying to repeal this thing. I get that politicians desire governmental powers to grow because then their power grows. I would just think the House and Senate would be able to recognize that they are being eliminated. The only branch of government now required is the executive branch. Even the judiciary has been pigeonholed by the selectiveness of the Justice Department in applying laws.
Why are Democrats and Progressives forcing their way into the bedrooms and sex lives of Americans? I understand why they are forcing people to pay for abortions against their will, that is all about control. But why this rush to insert themselves into the private lives of all Americans? Oh, I get it!!!!!! Its all about control, not healthcare. Silly me.
This is the law in Virginia. It is the law in Georgia.. It was signed into law by Republcian Catholic George Pataki in New York. Numerous courts have sustained it against first amendment challenges.
Obama is the 29th Chief Exec in this country to do this. Why do conservatives and Republicans play pretend and act like this is something new?
And what's really astonishing is how anyone, anyone, can think that it's Obama who is going into people's bedrooms and commanding behavour. Do you really think we're stupid?
Private charity cannot be allowed to compete with government dependency. Private schools cannot be allowed to compete with government indoctrination schools. Religions cannot be allowed to compete with, or to question, the new federal religion of "secular humanism". All competition must be destroyed, so that the fe(de)ral monopoly can be fully effectuated. Who cares what it says in the US Constitution?
The following quote does not refer to the US fe(de)ral government: "I am the Lord, thy God. Thou shalt not have strange gods before me."
However, it would be very difficult to return the global population to a "sustainable" total of ~1 billion without free (an ultimately mandatory) contraception, abortion and sterilization. Welcome to "The Brave New World".
President Obama claims it is common sense - not class warfare - that motivates his plan to raise taxes on the wealthy. According to the President, the wealthy should pay more because they can afford to pay more. While I concede that his “those who can pay more should pay more” argument is a legitimate argument to make, I don’t agree that raising taxes on job creators is the best way to grow our economy. And this argument is more honest than claiming the top 1% of income-earners who pay more than 30% of all federal income taxes collected - compared to almost 50% of income-earners who don’t pay a single dime - aren’t paying their fair share. Unfortunately, the HHS mandate that requires free contraceptives for all employees covered by employer-sponsored health insurance plans, which will include members of the 1% club, derails the only legitimate argument President Obama has for raising taxes on the wealthy.
Most reasonable people know that “free” contraceptives aren’t really free and that someone will have to pay for them. And who will that be? Each and every person who has an employer-sponsored health insurance plan, including middle and low income employees, will contribute to the cost of the President’s free contraceptive mandate. Thus, folks who can’t afford to pay more will pay higher health insurance premiums, higher deductibles and co-pays and receive fewer benefits in order to off-set the cost of free contraceptives for the wealthiest employees in the country. And let’s not forget that many employees will be paying for a healthcare benefit they don’t need or want. What’s sensible about that? I hope someone will have the courage to ask the President that question and insist upon an answer.
"Utterly perplexing in all of this is why Team Obama ever saw this regulation as necessary."
Come now, Mr. Murdock. It's not about the cost of the Pill, it's about the federal government dictating every facet of our lives because we're too stupid to be trusted with something as important as the decisions about our health care.
As has been said many times, government health care isn't about health care, it's about government.
"As has been said many times, government health care isn't about health care, it's about government." Right you are, but it needs to be said one more time, and one more time after that. Especially by Republicans. Especially to the voters, until they understand.
Why, Mr. Murdoch asks? Because the Government is god and you must bow at the altar of abortion. Look what Planned Parenthood did to Susan Komen when it dared to withdraw its funding.
It would be refreshing if we finally could get the president's opponents to tell it like it really is: income redistribution is socialism, and the president is a socialist. He wants to make outcomes equal, not level the playing field. It's the end result he's striving to control.
The essential point is not that some specific Obama initiative is unnecessary or superfluous or even stupid. It's that such initiatives are all aimed at increasing the Administration's arbitrary power by trashing the Constitution. His every mega-law, trial balloon, or bob and weave has this primary aim in mind. We must have a really good Constitution if it still gets in the way of aspiring tyrants 200+ years later! That's why tyrannically inclined elites in other nations want some other kind of Constitution.
Say you own a business that sells school supplies. It has come to the federal government's attention that your local public school is in need of school supplies. Some logical responses may be - ask the parents of those children in need to buy school supplies for the children they chose to bring into this world, or, if they cannot afford school supplies, perhaps organize a community drive for school supplies for the school. As the business owner, you may even choose to help organize a donation drive through your business, or you may see that it could be in your best interest to donate directly to the school. What, though, is the federal government's only solution, and a mandated one at that? You, the business, must give the needed supplies to the children yourself at a cost out of your own pocket. How hard is it to find a pack of 12 pencils at Walmart or a pharmacy, and how much do they cost? Some parents may even choose to pool their resources and buy school supplies as a group to reduce costs. If the federal government was not mandating the forced business donation, would it necessarily follow that all the children will be pencil-less and therefore fall behind in and then drop out of school?
Say you own a business that sells school supplies. It has come to the federal government's attention that your local public school is in need of school supplies. Some logical responses may be - ask the parents of those children in need to buy school supplies for the children they chose to bring into this world, or, if they cannot afford school supplies, perhaps organize a community drive for school supplies for the school. As the business owner, you may even choose to help organize a donation drive through your business, or you may see that it could be in your best interest to donate directly to the school. What, though, is the federal government's only solution, and a mandated one at that? You, the business, must give the needed supplies to the children yourself at a cost out of your own pocket. How hard is it to find a pack of 12 pencils at Walmart or a pharmacy, and how much do they cost? Some parents may even choose to pool their resources and buy school supplies as a group to reduce costs. If the federal government was not mandating the forced business donation, would it necessarily follow that all the children will be pencil-less and therefore fall behind in and then drop out of school?
Why would Obama pick this fight? Because he believed that the in-depth analysis required to reason this issue through, as this article does, would be boiled down to soundbites by a compliant press. It is out of touch, old religious men (who are child molesters, by the way) declaring war on women. And he got his wish - we are now fighting on the battleground of women's health, supported by secularists who think this battle and religion in general is BS.
"is it too much to ask her either to find contraceptive coverage elsewhere or go work somewhere that offers such insurance?"
In other words, go find somewhere else to be free to make your own choices. Right. Because insurance is so inexpensive. Without an employer to subsidize insurance, most working Americans wouldn't be able to afford it in the first place.
I'm not unsympathetic to the crux of the argument, but you cannot deny that allowing an employer to dictate what an employee may do with her body by way of offering the least inexpensive insurance, and calling that "freedom of choice," is a little hinky.
"allowing an employer to dictate what an employee may do with her body..."
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nonsense! there is NO employer telling an employee what he/she can do with his/her body...just because you don't like to have to take RESPONSIBILITY for the CHOICE you make, does not mean you weren't allowed to make it
That's Orwellian Newspeak if there ever was any. To "reach out and offer" something is a voluntary act. To be required to do so is self-contradictory. Obama depends on voters not noticing or caring that his locutions amount to waterboarding the English language.
I don't believe that weatherboarding is torture. So, based on that, do you mean to say that O is making the English language gag and gasp and think that it is drowning all the while leaving it unscathed.
Other than that little quibble, I love the turn of phrase.
I also noticed the forced reach out aspect but assumed it was just O exhibiting his true self and fumbling over words in the absence of a teleprompter.
Why are they doing this now? Because the Dems need to deflect public awareness from their economic malfeasances and they genuinely believe that they can win the election on 'social issues'. They hope that Rick Santorum and Mitt Romney will now be forced to debate their respective beliefs regarding abortion, gay marriage and the myriad other issues the Left have managed to tie to 'women's health' instead of catologing the failures of the Democrats to get the economy back on track over the last four years.
I am already seeing things on the web about how Rick Santorum wants to control women's wombs in accordance with his Catholic faith, but Rick has already been largely demonized by the mainstream media and the Dems as a religious nutburger because he has a deep mainstream traditional religious faith. Romney is suddenly getting leading questions about what he thinks of abortion and the power of the 'states' to limit it; watch as the teachings of the LDS Church regarding marriage, homosexuality and birth control enter the public spotlight and Mitt is grilled on those subjects to the exclusion of more relevant topics.
Rick and Mitt have to make it clear that the President isn't supposed to violate the Constitution and established law to further his own personal beliefs and that the present occupant of the White House is doing exactly that. They need to point out the double standard that the media and the Left are trying to apply, and make it clear that they will not abuse the powers of the office when and if they are elected to it.
