What's to be said in the big picture about BHO's utterly inept mandate that every employer who provides health insurance must provide 100% coverage of prescription contraceptives?
One, that BHO is a sincere Christian believer who doesn't really understand other people's faith perspectives. He is, in effect, a progressive Christian fundamentalist. There is no religious truth worth thinking about other than his. People who disagree need to accept what he has to say and understand that they have no choice.
Two, that BHO doesn't understand insurance or economics. That was well demonstrated by Cato's John Cochrane, who offered in WSJ about the best refutation of the left's reasoning on mandated free contraceptives, while at the same time offering a refresher on why the whole approach to health insurance in ObamaCare is so utterly, utterly bereft of economic common sense.
For more of the same, witness this week's Friday night White House news-dump: that BHO offers as a compromise that insurance companies must not "explicitly charge" Catholic organizations for the provision of contraceptives. The lunch is free, but the beer costs ten bucks. Wow. Would someone on the President's staff introduce him to the definition of the term "fungible"?
Three, the President, really, really cares about women's health. In exactly the way that the left-wing base of the Democratic Party prescribes that all Democrats care: the provision of contraception and abortion. Apparently for the political left all women do is have babies.
Of all the lame moves that this President has made--and not every move he's made has been lame--which ones were not the consequence of placating the left wing of his party? Clearly, Obama understands that he owes his success to the support of MoveOn.org and its ilk, so that whatever he does, he dare not offend them. Foreign policy has been a qualified exception, but we are hard pressed to identify others.
And we are sad to note that Obama's political strategy may well win him a second term. No GOP candidate stands much of a chance against him presently, we believe. Is it really too late to prevail upon Mitch Daniels?
5 comments:
Yeah, that's pretty lame. What I don't get is why Obama would allow institutions the right to opt out of paying premiums for contraceptives so as not to violate their religious beliefs but not extend the same consideration to individuals.
He doesn't want to fight against Catholics in an election year. Individuals can be cast as extremist, right-wing, fundamentalists and ignored. He doesn't have much to lose there (he probably isn't expecting a large percentage of the evangelical vote anyway). Risking the loss of Catholics across the nation, on the other hand...
Regarding point three:
Obviously there is more to women's health than contraceptive/reproductive services. That said, however, this is a HUGE percentage of actual health care and heath needs that many women have, younger women especially. It's no secret that any birth control (whether monthly, yearly, or a one-off thing like an IUD) can be pretty darn expensive. There are many younger women, myself included, whose only contact with a doctor or doctor's office of any kind has been the gynecologist (or substitute like Planned Parenthood). I don't even remember the last time I've been to a non-reproductive related doctor; it's literally been upwards of 5 or 6 years. I guess my point is that, yes, there is more than this involved in "women's health," but contraceptive/reproductive care is the major thing for a lot of us.
"There is no religious truth worth thinking about other than his." Doesn't that describe you?
Becca, is it not true that young adults generally don't go to the doctor? And is that not because they generally don't have a lot of health expenses, because they're generally healthy? If young women only go to the gynecologist, do young men go at all? Having recently been a young man (well, not recently), we know the answer to that question, and so do you.
In a recent WSJ op ed, Senators Box, Shaneen and Murray argued that birth control is expensive and so ought to be covered by a mandate. As much as $600 a year, they said it costs. So it has to be covered. No discretion, no choice.
Really? A woman can't cover the cost of $1.65 per day?
That question answers itself. But there's more. Kroger sells many generic BC pills for $4 a month. Fifty a month is the high end of the high end, and it's still not a big number.
But let's say that it is a high number for some. Then make it EBT eligible. Why should a Roman Catholic hospital have to violate its principles for this? Are free birth control pills more valuable than free practice of religion?
The problem is the employer mandate. Health insurance has got to be employer based, and it's got to cover what the government says it's got to cover. And if it's covered, there must be no direct expense to the patient. No discretion from employers, and none from patients.
Had BHO not overreached to preserve the employer-based provision of health insurance that empowers collective bargaining, we wouldn't have this or various other messes.
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