White House retreating on birth control rule

[ProSense]

White House retreating on birth control rule

By Daniel Strauss

The White House will announce a retreat from its controversial rule requiring religious organizations like charities and hospitals to include contraception in their healthcare plans.

President Obama has come under heavy criticism from the Catholic Church and other religious organizations, Republicans, and even some Democrats over the issue, and Vice President Biden has suggested a compromise could be worked out.

A White House official on Friday confirmed an announcement on changing the rule would be made Friday. It is unclear whether President Obama, who ducked questions on the issue on Thursday, will announce the change or comment on it in public.

According to ABC News, the White House will allow employees to get birth control as part of their health insurance by going through a health care provider, and not directly through their empoyer.

- more -

http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/209905-report-white-house-to-announce-accommodation-on-contraception-rule

White House to Announce ‘Accommodation’ for Religious Organizations on Contraception Rule

By Jake Tapper

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.

Sources say it will be respectful of religious beliefs but will not back off from that goal, which many religious leaders oppose since birth control is in violation of their religious beliefs.

White House officials have discussed the state law in Hawaii, where religious groups are allowed to opt out of coverage that includes birth control, as long as employees are given information whether such coverage can be obtained. But this accommodation would not go that far.

- more -

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/02/white-house-to-announce-accommodation-for-religious-organizations-on-contraception-rule/

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/02/10/1063463/-BREAKING-White-House-Expected-to-Announce-Compromise-on-Birth-Control-Rule

Why on earth does the Catholic Church get to dictate the health care choices of all Americans?

The rule already includes an exemption. The majority of Americans approve of the provisions.

This is ridiculous!

[NRaleighLiberal]

1. big, profitable, influential business, that catholic church.....

[ProSense]

7. Here's

another disgusting report


Update to add another report that makes me mad:

Feb. 8 (Bloomberg) -- President Barack Obama ended months of internal White House debate by siding with a group of mostly female advisers who urged him not to limit a health-care law mandate to provide contraceptives, even at the risk of alienating Catholic voters in November, people familiar with the discussions said.

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, a Catholic and a two-term governor of Kansas, was joined by several female Obama advisers in urging against a broad exemption for religious organizations. To do so would leave too many women without coverage and sap the enthusiasm for Obama among women’s rights advocates, they said, according to the people, who spoke about the deliberations on condition of anonymity.

Vice President Joe Biden and then-White House chief of staff Bill Daley, also Catholics, warned that the mandate would be seen as a government intrusion on religious institutions. Even moderate Catholic voters in battleground states might be alienated, they warned, according to the people familiar with the discussions.

The administration’s decision, announced Jan. 20, has quickly entered the presidential campaign. Republican rivals accuse Obama of trampling on religious freedom and Catholic bishops have ordered lectures from the pulpits across the nation.

- more -

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-02-09/obama-weighed-religious-politics-in-contraceptives-decision.html

Evidently the administration sided with women, but now the Catholic Church's priorities are more important?

Reminds me of the whole Plan B issue. In April 2009, the administration made it available over the counter for women over the age of 17. I wonder if the recent decision to keep it as a prescription for women under 17 was made out of the same concern: not upsetting the Catholic Church.

[JustAnotherGen]

2. I'm asking that question myself

And I'd also like to know how many Catholic women there are in the country that do not, have not and will not take contraception.

Then I'd like to know how many Protestant, Atheist, Agnostic, Unitarian, Jewish, Bhuddists, Hindus, Nature Based women of faith/no faith there are in this country that are not opposed to Birth Control.

And then I'd like us to send a strong message to President Obama that you cater to Catholic MEN and throw alll the non-Catholic women in this country under the bus. Because that's what he will be doing.

[MoonstoneHeart]

6. Unfortunately President Obama only responds to right-wing pressure.

The rest of us can go fuck ourselves.

[ProSense]

9. That's

bullshit. The fact is these people are loud, and when they scream, it seems like the media pundits and other elected officials bail. Since the issue was raised, Democrats started dumping the President like it was fashionable.

It's disgusting. The problem is that there was more noise and sustained outside pressure to hold Komen accountable than there was push back at the Catholic Church.

[hifiguy]

15. That doesn't excuse him from not having the

intestinal fortitude to stand up to loud-mouthed reichwing bullies. Not one bit. I am so sick of this kind of crap.

[ProSense]

16. Maybe

"That doesn't excuse him from not having the intestinal fortitude to stand up to loud-mouthed reichwing bullies. "

...not, but when Democrats in Congress start bailing, he can keep shouting and watch them harden their position. It happens (see the health care reform battle 1992). Running against Congress and getting into fight with Democratic members is not the same thing.

<...>

The five Democrats in the Senate expressing concern about some parts of the administration’s policy include, most recently, Sens. Ben Nelson of Nebraska and Bill Nelson of Florida, who have spoken publicly about their unhappiness with the mandate.

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/02/obama-contraceptive-mandate-losing-senate-democrats/

The last thing Democrats need right now is a vote in Congress with some Democrats giving Republicans the edge.

[MoonstoneHeart]

3. Doesn't the president always cave to right-wing pressure?

[spanone]

11. not that i'm aware of...please cite examples...

[Puglover]

4. You are 1000 percent right.

Why does an organization, that represents a belief system I do not subscribe to have any say over my reproductive rights. (Not that I plan on reproducing anytime soon but that's beside the point. )

[Enrique]

5. the politics are a no-brainer

he can now claim to be more respectful of the Catholic church than Mitt Romney.

And the pro-birth-control (lol) people will not make Obama pay a price, what are they going to do, vote for the Republicans?

[Jackpine Radical]

8. I first of all don't get the point of making a concession

that will leave the Bishops just as mad as the original proposal.

But much more than that, I don't get the point of even acknowledging the legitimacy of one group trying to dictate the behavior of other groups on the basis of the first group's religious beliefs.

All those who object to birth control are free not to use it.

And anyway, I hope those priests aren't transmitting STDs to the children they molest due to their failure to use condoms.

[JDPriestly]

10. Why does any employer get to pick and choose an employee's health care

package. The employer should pay and stay out of it.

Better yet, why not have single-payer that permits each person to pick his or her insurance plan within certain cost limits and exclude the employer all together. Why do employers play any role in insuring their employees? What qualifies an employer to pick the employee's insurance plan? Why not have state governments regulate insurance companies and plans within a state and allow each person to pick a plan with the benefits that individual requires?

[mmonk]

12. Political considerations. It is what I said would happen.

[earthside]

13. Bad week for Obama ...

... vis a vis regular, working middle class Americans.

First the sell-out to the banks on the foreclosure disaster.

Then the contraception cave --- in spite of the fact that 98 percent of sexually active Catholic women use birth control (you'd think he'd want all of those votes). What are Obama and Biden so afraid of? A couple dozen socially neanderthal 'bishops' and the ranting, foaming CPAC Repuglicans?

Pres. Obama and VP Biden need to put this simply: if you don't believe in birth control, then don't use it. Period. And a little cadre of conservative bishops cannot impose their beliefs on anyone else's health care decisions. Period.

It seems like just when Pres. Obama starts to make us believe that he is comprehending that he really is going to be tougher and more populist, he then lurches back into the timidity and risk-aversion mode.

[truebrit71]

14. Can you imagine the stink if a Muslim organization tried this sort of shit?

...but oh no, we have to continue to allow that cult of child-rapists to treat their female employees like second-class citizens...Does the cafflick church pay for the boner pills though, i'd be curious to find out..

[Warren DeMontague]

17. So The Vatican thinks referring people to contraception is "cooperation with evil"

yet helping child abusers escape justice isn't.

Jesus Fucking Christ on a pogo stick.

[craigmatic]

18. This is a simple issue- if you don't want to supply birth control don't take federal money.