Obama Offers Birth Control Compromise That Was Worse Than The Original Mandate
President Obama wants the controversy over mandated coverage for contraceptives and abortion drugs to go away, and so he’s offering what he’s calling a compromise.
Instead of mandating that employers (including religious organizations) provide the coverage, he’ll mandate that insurance companies provide the coverage for “free.” Meaning that insurance companies wouldn’t be able to pass on the expense of covering those treatments/medications to premium payers.
Which may actually be worse what they were proposing before. Obama wants to exchange a mandate that required people of faith to pay for treatments/medications they object to morally for a mandate that requires companies to provide a service for free.
What’s next, forcing grocery stores to hand out free vegetables?
In an abrupt shift following a political firestorm, President Barack Obama announced Friday that religious employers will not be mandated to offer free contraceptive coverage for workers.
The president will require that insurance companies, rather than religious-affiliated institutions, take the lead in enrolling employees for the birth control benefit and covering the cost. Catholic advocates had argued that placing the requirement on employers would abridge free speech rights.
“After the many genuine concerns that have been raised over the last few weeks, as well as the frankly more cynical desire by some to make this into a political football, it became clear that spending months hammering out a solution was not going to be an option,” Obama said in the White House briefing room, with Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius standing by his side.
This became a political football because the mandate handed down by the Obama administration, under the auspices of Obamacare, violated our religious freedom. And now this new “compromise” (which by the way would have us all paying higher premiums to subsidize this new entitlement for contraceptives and abortion pills) violates our economic freedom by forcing a company to provide a service for free.
Maybe this was a deft political maneuver. By diluting the onus for subsidizing contraceptives/abortion pills from individual insurance policy holders to policy holders collectively Obama may defuse anger coming from religious groups. Maybe they’ll be satisfied with the idea that everyone’s ox is getting gored.
But from the perspective of individual liberty, this is no improvement.
Tags: Barack Obama, birth control, obamacare
