(ABC News) With the White House under fire for its new rule requiring employers including religious organizations to offer health insurance that fully covers birth control coverage, ABC News has learned that later today the White House —possibly President Obama himself —will likely announce an attempt to accommodate these religious groups.

The move, based on state models, will almost certainly not satisfy bishops and other religious leaders since it will preserve the goal of women employees having their birth control fully covered by health insurance.

My money’s on this being all smoke and mirrors, designed to deflect the controversy out of the limelight. ‘Cause the last thing Team Obama wants is to have to discuss his “signature legislation” during an election year.

Update: here we go, via WRAL

Women will still get guaranteed access to birth control without co-pays or premiums no matter where they work, a provision of Obama’s health care law that he insisted must remain. But religious universities and hospitals that see contraception as an unconscionable violation of their faith can refuse to cover it, and insurance companies will then have to step in to do so.

Seems to be more of semantics: religious organizations get to say they don’t cover objectionable issues, but, their insurance carriers still have to pay.

“No woman’s health should depend upon who she is or where she works or how much money she makes,” the president said in a statement to reporters at the White House. “Every woman should be in control of the decisions that affect her own health, period.”

If someone else is paying, they are no longer in control.

White House officials said Obama has the legal authority to order insurance companies to provide free contraception coverage directly to workers. He will demand it in a new rule.

And there’s one of the problems, government can tell any private entity how to run their business. It’s almost like ….socialism.

Anyhow, Champ had to retreat: the last thing he wants to do is have people think about his fantastically unpopular “signature legislation” during an election year.

(Reuters) A U.S. Roman Catholic television network said on Thursday it has filed suit in federal court to block President Barack Obama’s new rule on contraceptives, while a Catholic Church leader and top Republicans stepped up their criticism of Obama.

The rule, implemented on January 20, requires religious-oriented groups such as charities, hospitals and universities, but not churches, to provide coverage for birth control as other health insurance providers must do. The Catholic Church opposes most methods of birth control.

EWTN Global Catholic Network said it filed its case in U.S. District Court in Birmingham, Alabama against the U.S. Department of Health Human Services and other government agencies seeking to stop the imposition of the rule. The case asks the court to find the rule unconstitutional, it said.

The rule itself is part of ObamaCare, and if one group is completely exempted, then ObamaCare is then in violation of equal protection under the law (14th Amendment, Preamble of the Constitution, and Declaration of Independence). But, if the rule applies to all, then ObamaCare is in violation of the 1st, which states that “Congress shall pass no law….prohibiting the free exercise thereof (of religion). I have to wonder if challenging simply the rule has anything to do with so many Catholic institutions supporting the health care reform fiasco. I can’t find anything that shows that EWTN supported it, but….

Anyhow

In another development, Archbishop of New York Timothy Dolan, who is the president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, called on Obama to back off from the rule and said it contradicted assurances Obama gave him during a White House meeting in November.

Ah. So, like so many liberals, Archbishop Dolan figured he wouldn’t actually have to be a part of a restrictive, overbearing law he supported. He figured he would be exempt. Kinda like how Liberals love the thought of higher taxes and globull warming restrictions, but always for That Guy.

Crossed at Right Wing News and Stop The ACLU.

But, Obama is not giving up on forcing his views on American’s, reducing their freedom (via Hot Air)

(ABC News) President Obama “reinforced” his stance on the controversial contraception mandate while speaking at the Democrats’ annual retreat at Nationals Park in Washington, D.C. today, Senate Democrats said.

The retreat was closed to media.

Following President Obama’s speech at the retreat, a small group of Senate Democrats, mostly women, left the retreat early in order to hold a news conference on Capitol Hill to counter the Republicans’ news conference today at which they called for the mandate to be overturned.

Democrats said they will “fight strongly” to keep the mandate in place.

“It is our clear understanding from the administration that the president believes as we do, and the vast majority of the American women should have access to birth control,” Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., said pointing out that 15 percent of women use birth control for medical issues. “It’s medicine, and women deserve their medicine.”

Yet, they do have access to contraception, regardless of whether their health insurance offers it or not.  They can get a prescription from a doctor and pick up birth control pills. No one is stopping them. They can go down to the local pharmacy and buy condoms! Amazing, eh? And easy! They’re even available at grocery stores and small places like 7/11, WaWa, Kangaroo, and so on. By this same argument the Democrats are making, every plan should include, say, laser eye surgery. For free. No co-pays. Yet, most don’t even include a small discount. Government is not mandating. But, 1 in 4 American’s will need some sort of corrective eye implements by age 40.

“The power to decide whether or not to use contraception lies with a woman – not her boss,” said Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y. “What is more intrusive than trying to allow an employer to make medical decisions for someone who works for them?”

As Allahpundit wrote Anyone want to field that question from ObamaCare supporter Kirsten Gillibrand? What about the Central Government’s power to decide? But, neither is deciding whether or not to use contraception, they are deciding whether it is in the health insurance plans. Government is mandating over the specific religious objections of Catholics, a clear violation of the 1st Amendment, along with the liberals own talking points about a “separation of Church and State.”

This is not a bug, though, nor a by-product. This is intentional. When you dig into ObamaCare, you see that one of the main points is to make sure private sector employers who offer health insurance drop their coverages. Central government would much rather have the private sector pay the $2,000 fine to the Central Government, rather than pay the $6-12 thousand per year per employee they are paying now, with the employees then joining the government health insurance exchange. With each company that ends up dropping their offers, the Democrats can demonize them and says “look how mean private sector companies are!”

If just one employee obtains insurance through the exchange, their company is responsible for paying the fine for every employee. In retail, there can be, roughly, 25% of the employees being part-time. Some companies offer insurance for them, but, none take it, because it is much more expensive. Some do not even offer to part time. Companies will not take the chance that just one obtains insurance through the exchange. They will drop their plans. And that’s beside the notion that the fine is cheaper than the out-lays.

Let’s not forget this from the other day

“Unless this rule is overturned, we Catholics will be compelled to either violate our consciences or drop health care coverage for our employees (and suffer the penalties for doing so),” according to a letter from Archbishop Joseph Naumann of the Archdiocese of Kansas City in Kansas.

“Drop health care coverage.” That’s the point. But, why Obama would want to pick this fight in a presidential election year is strange. Perhaps he thinks that no matter how shabbily he treats Catholics, they’ll still vote for him. Democrats treat lots of voter blocks poorly, and, yes, they are dumb enough to vote Democrats. Will this time be different? Perhaps Obama was trying to change the narrative, which is that he is incompetent, has no clue how to deal with the economy, and is against creating private sector jobs. Move the conversation away from Keystone XL, Solyndra and other failed “green” companies, the waste of Stimulus, and Fast and Furious. Or, perhaps, he just doesn’t know better, and made a whopper of a mistake in green lighting this agenda.

More: The Lonely Conservative: To hear them talk you’d think Republicans are trying to outlaw birth control. Kirsten Gillibrand even said a woman’s boss shouldn’t be the one to decide whether she uses birth control. This isn’t about choosing to use contraception, it’s about who pays for it, and the government has no business forcing people to pay for it when it violates their beliefs.

Crossed at Right Wing News and Stop The ACLU.

Did Catholic organizations support Obamacare because they either assumed or were told that they would get an exception based on their religious beliefs?

Because if that is true, then essentially they agreed to support an infringement on others’ freedoms just so long as their own would be preserved. How did they think that would eventually work out?

Now, don’t get me wrong; of course I am delighted that Catholics are angry with the Obama administration.

However, I’m not exactly freaking out that they didn’t get what they bargained for, after they* gleefully endorsed curtailing your and my freedoms.

That’s a heck of a good point. Many of the Catholic organizations did support ObamaCare, though so many practicing Catholics did not. Much of the Catholic leadership has tended to lean Democrat over the past 20 or so years. Did they think, like so many liberals do, that any Central Government intrusion in the lives of Americans would only apply to That Guy and not themselves? That said, there are a lot of stories going around that Obama might cave, at least to some degree. Michael Gerson discusses

David Axelrod is now signaling that there “may be compromises that can be reached” on the Obama administration’s contraceptive mandate.  Or maybe he is just proposing a longer “grace period or time period in order to work this thing through.” I’m sure he would welcome a grace period extended just beyond the November election.

In either case, the Obama administration is clearly growing less confident in its current position — a requirement that religious hospitals, charities and universities provide insurance coverage that includes contraceptives and drugs that can cause early abortions.  “We want to resolve it in an appropriate way,” says Axelrod.

Yet Axelrod still refuses to concede anything on the central issue of the debate.  He maintains that “extended, affiliated institutions like hospitals and universities” should be regulated like an Apple Store or 7-11, since all employ and serve non-members. This represents a deep misunderstanding of religion itself.  Catholics serve non-Catholics precisely because that is the calling of Catholicism.  Christians serve non-Christians because that is one of their defining missions in the world.  There is nothing “extended” or “affiliated” about a Catholic shelter for abused women or the homeless.  Such institutions are Catholic in motivation, Catholic in inspiration, Catholic through and through.

Alexrod is still insisting on the forced secularization of religious institutions. He wants compromise without the inconvenience of making concessions.

Many people rightfully point out that many Catholic hospitals, businesses, and organizations already offer contraception and sterilization in their insurance plans. Yes, they do. But, those who offer this defense miss the greater point: it was the choice of those hospitals, businesses, and organizations to offer those health plans, not the governments. That is the point: the American federal government, and, to a degree, the state and local governments, should stop mandating everything. Liberals like to talk about government staying out of our bedrooms, then they pass laws that invade our lives at all levels (let’s not forget, Republicans can do this too.)

With each little law passed, citizens lose the freedom to make their own decisions. Thomas Jefferson was adamant about including term limits in the Constitution for Congress (and the President), so that we would have citizen legislators who would serve a few terms and then go back into the private sector and live under the laws they passed. Right now, legislators pass laws and do not have to actually live under them. We have idiot Democrat Rep. Kathy Dahlkemper saying she wouldn’t have voted for ObamaCare had she known what was in it. That’s why you read the bill, chump. And when a law is so broad that it doesn’t actually define most things, but gives the Sec Of Health the power to make it up as she goes along, we have a major problem.

BTW, liberals, remember, if a Republican wins in 2012 (or beyond), he/she will get to appoint a new Sec. Of Health, who can than make up their own rules.

The freedom to make your own choices is what made America great. Congress doesn’t want that.

Anyhow, the Constitution specifically says that “Congress shall pass no law….that denies the free practice thereof (of religion)”. ObamaCare is that law.

(Marjorie Clifton at HuffPo) I am the product of 14 years of Catholic school and am a practicing Catholic, actively involved in the church all of my life. As a woman with a career in politics and women’s leadership, I have quietly worked within the church to make change and have cautiously offered my voice only when I felt it was essential. But, I can be quiet no longer.

You are welcome to speak out. It’s your Constitutional right. You are not free to push your beliefs on others by government law. That is against everything this country was founded on. Oh, and violates the portion of that same 1st Amendment regarding religion

Recently, the Catholic leadership came out in opposition to the mandate in our new healthcare law that all health insurance providers offer coverage for prescribed birth control, even for employees in some Catholic Institutions. But, let’s be clear about what the real issue is here. It is not about government controls, and it is not about infringement of our religious beliefs. It is about a church that has lost touch with reality. The leadership of the Catholic Church either is ignoring or is unaware of the disconnect between Catholic teaching and Catholic reality.

No, it is about government, and using the out of control force of government to make Catholic institutions, and other religious institutions, offer birth control. Also, sterilizations and the morning after pill. Ms. Clifton rationalizes this as “well, Catholics have sex, so, their health insurance provider should be not only forced to offer this products, but do so with a zero deductible.” So, the church is left with the choice of either offering the health insurance which violates their beliefs or dropping coverage.

Essentially, it boils down to people forcing their beliefs on other people. This is America. The religious institutions have the right, and the constitutional right, to offer insurance that adheres to their beliefs. The people who work for them have the freedom to go out and get their own insurance if they want free birth control and morning after pills. Liberals do not want anyone to have a choice. It’s their way or no way. They aren’t very tolerant of opposing viewpoints.

One has to wonder how the Obama admin. and liberals would react if the Muslim leaders came out against this decree.

Of course, these mandates are not direct: they require insurance carriers to offer the measures, but, then the religious institutions won’t have choice themselves. All are forced to offer birth control, sterilization, and abortion pills.

“Unless this rule is overturned, we Catholics will be compelled to either violate our consciences or drop health care coverage for our employees (and suffer the penalties for doing so),” according to a letter from Archbishop Joseph Naumann of the Archdiocese of Kansas City in Kansas.

He and other church prelates asked that the message be read from pulpits over the weekend.

“We cannot — we will not — comply with this unjust law,” Naumann’s letter stated.

An Obama appointee muzzled Army chaplains from reading the letter over the weekend, a clear violation of the 1st Amendment.

Liberals constantly tell us about this mythical separation of church and state. Funny how all of a sudden the State is allowed to dictate to the church.

What’s a Republican Feminist To Do?

Of course, we could ask “how many Republican women call themselves “feminists”?” How many have hairy legs and armpits? How many complain about “reproductive rights” and the government getting in the way the ability to make a “choice” to kill an unborn infant?

In the winter line-up of Republican presidential candidates, a moderate pro-choice Republican woman has no choice. She might feel as if she were so, well, last century.

It is not news that the Republican Party has moved further right on social issues over the past few decades, but the 2012 campaign is a clear marker showing that the party has left legal abortion behind. All the contenders, past and present, adamantly oppose legal abortion, even the libertarian obstetrician-gynecologist, Ron Paul. Overturning legal abortion may in fact be the one thing they all agree on — so it doesn’t come up much in debates, speeches or interviews. But it is on their agenda.

What we see is that Liberals consider support for abortion on demand to be a bedrock of being a feminist. Are there “moderate pro-abortion Republican women”? Probably. Do they seem to obsess over the ability for someone to have an abortion if they so choose? Doubtful. Unlike Democrats, Republicans do not obsess over being able to kill an unborn child simply because they became pregnant after a night of casual, promiscuous, and unprotected sex. Republicans, including women, refuse to be tied to labels and put in boxes.

By contrast, whatever he did in his personal life, President Clinton brought a sound grasp of women’s lives to the stump and to the Oval Office. The first bill he signed into law, the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993, was a huge gift to working women.

Clinton also had another gift for women: taking advantage of an intern young enough to be his daughter, receiving oral sex under his desk while he smoked a cigar. And we’ll keep this post PG rated by not discussing what he also did with a cigar. How’s that for having a sound grasp of women’s lives? If a Republican did that, he’d be branded a sexist and slapped with a sexual harassment suit. Oh, wait, Clinton was branded a sexist and slapped with multiple suits. If memory serves, Liberals were concerned with….destroying the women who filed those suits. I do love how Mz. Steihm casually dismisses the issue.

President Obama signed the pay equity act named for Lilly Ledbetter. His affordable health care act would make birth control more freely available.

It’s very interesting that Mz. Steihm would bring ObamaCare up in her post: we constantly hear from Liberals that they want government out of our health decisions, especially as it pertains to “women’s health issues”, ie, abortion on demand. They always fail to mention that they love government funding abortions so that people do not have to put out their money for an abortion after a night of casual, promiscuous, and unprotected sex. And that they love government regulations, laws, and court decisions that keep abortion “legal and rare.” But, then we come to ObamaCare: what other legislation passed in the history of the United States has involved the government more in “women’s health issues” than this one? Real health issues. We have the Independent Payment Advisory Board, which will make decisions about payments and treatments. We have massive reductions in Medicare and Medicaid funding. Most women think ObamaCare is bad for their families. ObamaCare will drive up the costs for health insurance and care. And we have supporters and proponents of ObamaCare calling for women to have breast exams later in life, because it is a waste of money to have them before 50. Those “death panels” are still there, regarding life decisions. Unelected and unaccountable bureaucrats will make decisions on health and cost.

That sure seems like government is getting heavily involved in “women’s health issues”, along with everyone else’s. One would think Liberals would be against government intruding on this issue. Alas, no, their only care is that government not place any restrictions on abortion on demand, even when it comes to later term abortion and requiring parental notification (of course, in the hypocrite world of Liberalism, they’d freak out if they weren’t notified about their own child). Daring to require a 24 hour waiting period or getting an ultrasound makes even the few rational liberals out there talk as if the legislation means women are going to be chained in a cell and forced to have the baby from their casual night of unprotected sex.

Crossed at Right Wing News and Stop The ACLU.

(Washington Times) Eleven states and the District of Columbia are siding with the Obama administration in the legal battle over the constitutionality of the new health care law, as more than half the states prepare to challenge the law before the Supreme Court.

Attorneys general in California, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Maryland, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Vermont, the District of Columbia and the Virgin Islands filed an amicus brief with the Supreme Court on Friday supporting Congress‘ authority to pass the sweeping legislation, arguing that health care is a national concern because the industry constitutes nearly one-fifth of the U.S. economy.

Iowa is rather a shocker, especially with a Republican governor and House. However, Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller is a…..Democrat. The others are no big surprise, and include, for the most part, the most expensive states to do business in, some of the worst economies in terms of debt, and some of the highest costs of living.

The attorneys general rejected a central argument made by the 26 states challenging the law — that Congress overstepped its authority by passing an “individual mandate” requiring Americans to obtain health insurance or pay a fine.

Instead, they emphasized a key argument made by the administration: that because Americans are legally entitled to health care — and everyone needs health care at some point in their life — Congress can mandate coverage to ensure others don’t have to pay for it.

An interesting argument, but, one that really has little to nothing to do with forcing people to purchase an item because they may possibly use it at some point. This would be the same as requiring every American to purchase a handgun and bullets because they might possibly have to use it at some point. Think these same Liberals would like a federal law like that, based loosely on the commerce clause?

And whether they are “legally entitled to health care” doesn’t follow that the Constitution gives the Central Government the power to only regulate commerce between the states, not what happens in states. The Commerce Clause is more of a key argument by the Obama administration.

Furthermore, the law doesn’t legally entitle people to purchase health insurance across state lines, so, there is no interstate commerce. This can all be moot, though, if Republicans realize that this election cycle isn’t simply about getting rid of Obama. Even if he is defeated, the GOP must retain the House and retake the Senate, otherwise, controlling the White House is moot.

It would all be moot, too, if the Democrats had decided to pass wise legislation that actually deals with the costs of health insurance, rather than a highly partisan piece of legislation which the majority of Americans are against.

Crossed at Right Wing News and Stop The ACLU.

(Forbes) There is, however, one notable exception – and it’s one that should have a long lasting and powerful impact on the future of health care in our country.

That would be the provision of the law, called the medical loss ratio, that requires health insurance companies to spend 80% of the consumers’ premium dollars they collect—85% for large group insurers—on actual medical care rather than overhead, marketing expenses and profit. Failure on the part of insurers to meet this requirement will result in the insurers having to send their customers a rebate check representing the amount in which they underspend on actual medical care.

This is the true ‘bomb’ contained in Obamacare and the one item that will have more impact on the future of how medical care is paid for in this country than anything we’ve seen in quite some time. Indeed, it is this aspect of the law that represents the true ‘death panel’ found in Obamacare—but not one that is going to lead to the death of American consumers. Rather, the medical loss ratio will, ultimately, lead to the death of large parts of the private, for-profit health insurance industry.

As Unger points out, there is no possible way for the insurance companies to continue to operate when they have to spend 80-85% of the money they collect on medical care. It’s a financial impossibility. How do they pay their employees? How do they pay for their property? Pay for the paperwork, much of it increased because of government regulation? Advertise their services? Pay their stockholders? Simply staying in business will be impossible.

Whether you are a believer in the benefits of single-payer health coverage or an opponent, mark this day down on your calendar because this is the day seismic shifts in our health care system finally get under way.

If you thought that the Obama Administration chickened out on pushing the nation in the direction of universal health care for everyone, today is the day you begin to understand that the reality is quite the contrary.

This is no a bug of Obamacare, but a feature. During the long Obamacare debate prior to passage, people said that this measure would kill the private for-profit insurance industry (not too mention the number of people this would put out of work), and that was the point of the measure, like so many others. If there are few or no private insurers, well, then, of course the federal government would have to step in, right?

And lest anyone think the Forbes writer is sympathetic to the insurance companies, alas, no. He thinks it would be great if they all went out of business. This is why, as I’ve said, Republicans/Conservatives cannot focus simply on replacing Barack Obama, but must retake the Senate and hold the House. Obamacare must be repealed before it does too much damage to matter.

Crossed at Right Wing News and Stop The ACLU.

(UK Telegraph) The annual hospital guide published by Dr Foster Intelligence using official figures shows that one in eight trusts has higher than expected death rates on Saturdays and Sundays, suggesting they are only working to a five-day week.

Many hospitals have far fewer senior consultants on site outside of normal office hours, the data show, and rely on junior doctors and nurses to treat critically ill patients.

In a handful of trusts, the mortality rate rises by 20 per cent or more between weekdays and weekends.

When you pay highly skilled workers, who spent enormous time learning their practice, putting themselves in huge debt, like every other worker, they will work regular hours. When it is government mandating business practices, things go wrong. When it is government in charge, you end up with rationing and other stupid practices. And people die, not just from incompetence, but simple government bureaucracies.

Welcome to the future of Obamacare.

Crossed at Right Wing News and Stop The ACLU.

Of all the possible outcomes being tossed around as the Affordable Care Act litigation heads for Supreme Court consideration, one is usually overlooked: If the court upholds the act’s constitutionality and its “individual mandate,” it could sound the death knell for the tea party.

Well, if pooping on cop cars, rampant drug use, violence, murder, sexual assault, and rape hasn’t shut down the Occupiers, a loss at SCOTUS wouldn’t eliminate the Tea Party. For one thing, the TP is not a single subject movement, unless you consider the over-arching idea of a limited federal government as the starting point.

The challenges to the mandate are perhaps the most concrete manifestation of the tea party’s vision of the Constitution and the role of government. The tea party has made its name by promoting a constitutional vision of a weak central government, incapable of addressing national issues — like the health care crisis, environmental protection and financial system reform — and this theory is at the heart of the lawsuits challenging the mandate. Progressives have long argued that the tea party’s vision has more to do with the failed Articles of Confederation than our enduring Constitution.

Liz was on the right track right up to the word “incapable.” That is incorrect. We understand that the federal government has a role, and what that role should be, as established by the pesky Constitution thing.

That argument by the progressives is a new one to me, though. Perhaps that’s how she thinks about it, without any real facts and knowledge.

But what if this message were delivered by the conservative Roberts Court in a high-profile defeat for the tea party in the health care litigation?

There is a distinct possibility that the high court could uphold the health care law’s constitutionality, not just with a 5-4 ruling — in which swing-vote Justice Anthony Kennedy sides with the court’s more liberal members — but with the support of conservative heroes, like Justice Antonin Scalia and Chief Justice John Roberts.

Got that? A distinct possibility. Why?

After all, Scalia concurred in the 2005 decision, Gonzales v. Raich, in which the court upheld a federal ban on possession of marijuana grown in accordance with local law for personal, medicinal use — because the ban was part of a broader regulation of interstate commerce.

Except, marijuana, rightly or wrongly, is a Schedule I drug, banned and illegal, under federal law. Unlike the individual mandate, no one is being forced to purchase cannabis simply because they are a citizen of the United States under the Commerce clause, because they might possibly cross state lines at some point. Heck, the federal ban on drugs itself may be overbearing, if the drugs never cross a state line or US border.

The health care law might also pick up conservative support in the Supreme Court beyond the Commerce Clause argument. Another constitutional basis for the law’s individual mandate is that it is a “necessary and proper” means of carrying out Congress’s constitutional power to regulate commerce.

I love when Liberals cite the Constitution without context. The last line of Article I, Section 8, states

To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.

The powers of Congress are laid out in Section 8 prior to that line. Necessary and proper points to what Congress is tasked with doing, not that I really have to point that out to people who can read. Section 9 lays out what Congress cannot do. How about this one in 9?

No Tax or Duty shall be laid on Articles exported from any State.

The Obama administration has, at times, proclaimed that the mandate is a “tax.” So, the Constitution defeats their, and Elizabeth’s, argument.

Even if the Mandate was upheld by SCOTUS, it would only make the Tea Party work harder, and would not erase the primary purpose, which is to reduce the size and scope of the federal government.

Crossed at Right Wing News and Stop The ACLU. Please sign the drill now petition.