House Republicans Take Aim at Birth Control in Quest to Scuttle Senate Shutdown Deal
It was predictable, perhaps, that House Republicans would respond to word of a bipartisan Senate deal in the works with an attempt to scuttle it. And what better way to do so than to make a doomed attempt to remove the contraceptive benefit from the Affordable Care Act (ACA)?
The deal that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (R-NV) and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) huddled to hammer out on Tuesday aims to reopen the government—at least temporarily—and prevent the United States from going into default on its debt, as it is likely to do on Thursday, October 17, unless the Congress acts to raise the debt ceiling.
As RH Reality Check reported, House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) seems to be taking orders from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, who sent their lobbyist, Richard Doerflinger, to the right-wing Values Voter Summit this weekend to demand that Republicans attach to such “must-pass” legislation language that would allow any employer, on the basis of a moral or religious objection, to deny their employees coverage of birth control under employee-earned insurance plans. (The ACA mandates coverage of contraception as part of an essential package of health care; the law also requires the provision of those prescription methods without a deductible or co-pay.)
To the House Republicans, who are hostage to their party’s Tea Party faction, there’s probably no dirtier word than “bipartisan”—except, perhaps, for the words “birth control.” So, as Republican members of the House gathered to put together their own plan to ostensibly reopen the government and avert the debt default, they began bandying about potential amendments to such a bill, amendments—including one that would revoke the birth control provision from Obamacare—that are guaranteed to fail in the Senate and prolong the crisis. Both the bishops and the Republicans refer to this proposal as a “conscience clause.” (Other ideas, according to the Washington Post, include “eliminate[ing] employer health-care contributions for White House staff and members of Congress,” making cuts to Social Security or Medicare, or other spending cuts.)
<snip>
http://rhrealitycheck.org/article/2013/10/15/house-republicans-take-aim-at-birth-control-in-quest-to-scuttle-senate-shutdown-deal/
= new reply since forum marked as read
