The REAL Problem with the ObamaCare "Contraception Mandate"

What is missing in this debate is the fact that one person, an unelected, unaccountable, appointed bureaucrat, has the ability under ObamaCare to tell everybody in the country what must be covered by their health insurance. ONE PERSON!!

I have been listening all week to the complaints by conservatives about Obama's recent decision to require all health plans offered by Catholic institutions to include "women's health services." A requirement that the administration seems to be backing quickly away from.

This is not about contraception; this is not about the Catholic Church. This is about whether the federal government of the United States should have the power to go in and require a religious organization to pay for something that the religious organization teaches against.

Mr. Rubio is close. This debate should be about whether the federal government of the United States has the power to tell an insurance company what it can or cannot provide to its customers. Because they cannot. Period. The government cannot tell a private company what legal goods and services it can provide and at what price.

What is missing in this debate is the fact that one person, an unelected, unaccountable, appointed bureaucrat, has the ability under ObamaCare to tell everybody in the country what is covered by their health insurance. ONE PERSON!!

This, to me, is a far more egregious violation our individual liberties and our freedom of choice when it comes to health insurance.

The argument that the "contraceptive mandate," as the requirement is becoming known in the main stream media (perhaps to hide the abortion coverage in the mandate) is specious, at best. If a religious institution purchases health insurance from any insurance company, their money is going to cover these disputed "women's health services."

Blue Cross, for example, does not have a specific account set up for Policy A, where all claims are paid through that account. Rather, monies paid for Policy A go into the general account, where all claims are paid, even "women's health services."

Could it be that the argument against the mandate is more about access to these services for religious women? Insurance coverage would make the services less costly, and thus more accessible. If that is the debate, the argument is more about encouraging people to follow the teachings of that religion, rather than changing a health insurance policy.

ObamaCare is a complete invasion into our freedoms and liberties. We simply cannot allow the federal government to force us to purchase a product from a private company, and then tell that private company what that product includes and how much to charge.

ObamaCare is patently unconstitutional and MUST be repealed. Our freedom and future is too important to let this stand.

UPDATE: 2:02pm 2/10/12

The President has announced that he plans to use power that he does not have to revert a decision that he should never have made.

The change would allow religious organizations to refuse to cover contraceptive care. It would also require insurers to offer a plan that does not include contraceptive care in their contracts with nonprofit religious groups. But the insurers would be required to make contraception available free of charge to women anyway. "We think this is a very workable solution," Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius told Fox News, adding that it respects "religious objections."

Too bad that the "solution" does not respect the US Constitution.

A president of the United States DOES NOT have the authority to tell a private business what products it must sell and at what price. That is what just happened today. This would be akin to the president telling McDonald's that it must offer the McRib year-round and only charge $1 for it. It would not be fair to offer a popular meal choice only part of the year and at a higher price.

Interestingly, during his speech today, he all but admitted the initial decision was rushed, purportedly to avoid the issue becoming a political football.

...it became clear that spending months hammering out a solution was not going to be an option, that we needed to move this faster. So last week, I directed the Department of Health and Human Services to speed up the process that had already been envisioned. We weren’t going to spend a year doing this; we’re going to spend a week or two doing this.

Seems more likely to me that the president rushed this decision in order to get it done well ahead of the elections this fall. The administration took a "week" instead of a "year," and got themselves into hot water politically. The rushed decision turned the issue from a political football into a political punching bag, and Obama was the one getting punched.

This is what happens when a politician has no regard for the constitution and what he is legally allowed to do; when he doesn't care about the consequences of his decisions, or the people it affects. And another reason why ObamaCare must -- and will -- go.

I Just Can't Wait for the Government to Control Health Care

When the government gets to decide what is in your insurance plan (in 2014), rest assured, and decisions will be made for you by a caring and concerned (not political!) bureaucrat.

I just can't wait for the US government to control health care, can you?

When confronted with concerns about religious employers having to provide women's health services (in English, that means contraception, abortion, and the like), the White House responded with sensitivity and grace: The decision has been made.

White House spokesman Jay Carney on Thursday tried to shut down growing opposition to the president’s decision to force religious groups to pay fines if they decline to comply with a policy regarding health insurance and contraception.

“The decision has been made,” said Carney.

Regardless of the merits of the move, it has been met with significant controversy, which apparently is meeting with indifference from the White House.

“No, there’s not a debate” about the policy inside the administration, Carney said during Thursday’s White House press conference, where several reporters repeatedly pressured him about the new directive. “The decision has been made,” said Carney.

So, starting in 2014, when the government is in the job of determining what is a "qualified" insurance plan and what is not, and you have a concern with what is in your insurance plan, rest assured, “No, there’s not a debate. The decision has been made" for you.

Health Insurance Rates to Increase Due to ObamaCare

Spending more more than $1 trillion dollars on "reform" will not reduce your costs, will not cut the deficit, will result in rationing, may result in losing your current plan and doctor, and will not cover all Americans.

Health insurance rates to increase due to ObamaCare, reports the Wall Street Journal, Rate Increases Are Blamed on Health-Care Overhaul.

Thanks Barack! You and your Liberal cronies forced through your health insurance "reforms" (despite massive public disapproval) promising lower insurance rates and federal deficit reduction.

Well, only a few months into the plan, and it turns out that you were wrong and we were right.

Health insurers say they plan to raise premiums for some Americans as a direct result of the health overhaul in coming weeks, complicating Democrats' efforts to trumpet their signature achievement before the midterm elections...

Shockingly, with added requirements including letting children stay on their parents' insurance policies until age 26, eliminating co-payments for preventive care and barring insurers from denying policies to children with pre-existing conditions, plus the elimination of the coverage caps, insurance companies are facing higher costs and passing those costs to the consumers.

...carriers have asked for premium increases of between 1% and 9% to pay for extra benefits required under the law, according to filings with state regulators....some consumers could face total premium increases of more than 20%."

"Anytime you add a benefit, there are increased costs," said Karen Ignagni, president of America's Health Insurance Plans, the industry's lobbying group.

Who could have predicted that? Well, pretty much everyone who was being honest during the health care "reform" debates.

As for that claim that adding 30 million people to the Medicare roles will actually reduce costs and not expand them? Sorry again, but no.

The CBO had originally estimated that the health care reform bill would result in a net reduction in federal deficits of $143 billion from 2010-2019; this revised number would eliminate most of that savings.

So, dropping more more than $1 trillion dollars to "reform" health care will not reduce your costs, will not cut the deficit, will result in rationing, may result in losing your current plan and doctor, and will not cover all Americans.

What exactly are we getting for OUR money?

Krugman: Death Panels are Real

"Esteemed" New York Times columnist Paul Krugman visited This Week on ABC and told us that the much-maligned "Death Panels" are really in ObamaCare:

The (Medicare advisory panel created by the act) which has the ability to make more or less binding judgments on saying this particular expensive treatment actually doesn't do any good medically and so we are not going to pay for it. That is actually going to save quite a lot of money. We don't know how much yet. The CBO gives it very little credit but, but most, most of the health care economists I talk to think that's going be a really, uh a really major cost savings.

The government -- not you or your doctor -- will decide if a treatment will work, likely based on pure budgetary reasons. And, before you shout out how you would prefer the government to make that call rather than some insurance company, realize that you can appeal decisions by insurance companies.

Under, ObamaCare, if you don't like the decision by the panel to give you the pill instead of the surgery, you are out of luck:

Unlike existing Medicare coverage laws, patients won’t have the ability to appeal any of the decisions of this new Medicare Commission.

But, friends, we have been telling you this all along.

...the health-care legislation in Congress will subject doctors to a mix of financial penalties and regulations to constrain their use of the most costly clinical options. The penalties and regulations are aimed first and foremost at surgeons and the medical devices that they use, largely because that's where the bulk of spending is.

Someone owes us all an apology.