Obama Insults Religious Employers with Eighth Revision to Contraceptive Mandate Regs

Obama Insults Religious Employers with Eighth Revision to Contraceptive Mandate Regs

The battle over the contraceptive mandate in the Affordable Care Act (ACA) has been going on for over four years now. The ruling in June in the Hobby Lobby and Burwell Supreme Court cases has only exacerbated the as-yet unresolved cases that many religious employers have filed in the last several years.

As has been the practice with the Obama Administration, this past Friday afternoon they released a controversial update to the regulations that govern the contraceptive mandate. This is the eighth update, and this one is more ridiculous and infuriating than any of the previous renditions.

I will spare you all of the nitty gritty details with regard to the background of the mandate and the legal challenges. Instead, let me give you the Cliff’s Notes version of what Obama’s brain trust thinks will pass muster and satisfy the protestations of devout religious factions.

The religious employers who oppose the ACA requirement that says employers must cover all forms of birth control and sterilization that are approved by the FDA have sought to be relieved of this objectionable provision. What the regulations proposed in the previous rendition was that employers who held themselves out as religious would sign a paper telling their insurance provider or third party administrator (TPA) that they object to this coverage. In those cases, the insurance provider or TPA would then issue a separate policy to the employees and cover the objectionable services and products in place of the employer.

Some religious employers were fine with this “accommodations.” But some said that this was still not sufficient because but-for their covering the cost of the basic insurance, these services and products would not be covered. It’s a piggy-back ride, in essence. Besides, nothing is ever “free,” so in reality the employers would be paying for the overage, not the insurer or TPA. To date, the vast majority of religious employers who have challenged the mandate in court using this argument have been granted injunctions, until the Supreme Court can hear the case–most likely in the coming term.

Which brings us to last Friday and the Obama Administration’s attempt to pull a fast one. In short, what the revised regulations say is this. Okay, religious employer. You object to having to tell your insurer or TPA that you don’t want to cover these particular items. So instead, you can tell Health and Human Services (HHS) or the Department of Labor (DOL) and they will tell your insurance company or TPA to provide these things.

This so-called fix misses the boat by such a wide margin that it is insulting. Do Obama’s minions think that anyone with a brain would think this to be an acceptable solution?. It completely misses the mark with regard to what employers are objecting to, and it makes a mockery of their religious beliefs.

But in the long run, for Obama, this is par for the course. (Pun intended.) If, like Obama, you don’t have a conscience and do things only for show, you are not bound by a moral code. The only thing that matters is that you say something publicly and can wash your hands of a direct link to the dirty deed. Obama is good at that. But he is sadly mistaken if he thinks his lack of a moral code will translate into a solution for God-fearing men and women who believe in following their consciences and their faith. And, God willing, the nation’s highest court will once again put him in his place in the coming term.

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