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Obamacare Forces Health Plans to Cover Birth Control Without Co-Pays

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Monday, 23 January 2012 07:25

Obamacare's tentacles are just now starting to reach deep into the health care industry and how it affects everyday Americans.  On Friday, in the standard document dump fashion, the Health and Human Services (HHS) department announced that healthcare plans will be required to cover birth control without charging co-pays or deductibles starting this summer.  This means that the taxpayers will be subsidizing birth control for all Americans.  The issue goes deeper, as we've now seen Obamacare fundamentally transforms how an individual purchases birth control and who pays for it.  This was done to please the pro-life wing of the liberal base; however, it has angered Congressional Republicans and religious organizations, rightfully so.

One of the primary objectives of Obamacare is to implement as much of it as possible so it will be harder to repeal.  President Obama and his sideshow of liberal freaks know that Obamacare is unconstitutional and are therefore trying to get as much of it implemented as possible.  Part of that means implementing unpopular facets of Obamacare to drum up support from his extreme, radical liberal base.  In this case, Kathleen Sebelius, Health and Human Services secretary, has deemed it necessary that everyone be forced to pay for a service that they may not want to pay for: birth control.

Most healthcare plans will be required to cover birth control without charging co-pays or deductibles starting Aug. 1, the Obama administration announced Friday.

The final regulation retains the approach federal health officials proposed last summer, despite the deluge of complaints from religious groups and congressional Republicans that has poured in since then. Churches, synagogues and other houses of worship are exempt from the requirement, but religious-affiliated hospitals and universities only get a one-year delay and must comply by Aug. 1, 2013.

“This decision was made after very careful consideration, including the important concerns some have raised about religious liberty,” Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said in a statement. “I believe this proposal strikes the appropriate balance between respecting religious freedom and increasing access to important preventive services."

Congressional Republicans slammed the decision as an assault on religious freedom.

"This ruling forces religious organizations to violate the fundamental tenets of their faith, or stop offering health insurance coverage to their employees," said the Republican Policy Committee. "Time will tell whether those institutions choose the former or the latter course — but neither option should be necessary, if the administration had not taken such an unbending approach to appease its liberal base."

Access to birth control is the most controversial aspect of the healthcare reform law's preventive care provisions, which require plans to cover such care without co-pays and deductibles. The assumption is that such coverage will prevent people from getting sick and keep healthcare costs down.

The provision has attracted more than 200,000 comments, HHS said — most of them in favor of access to birth control, which the vast majority of healthcare plans already cover. Some religious institutions, however, said they would sooner close their doors than cover birth control, which they liken to abortion in some cases.

Of course HHS claims that most of the 200,000 comments on their website were positive in support for taxpayers subsidizing birth control.  Given the propaganda that's spewed out of the Obama administration at any given moment, don't be surprised if it's a lie.

The issue is the individual being forced to pay for something that they may not agree with: contraception.  But why stop there?  Why aren't cancer drugs subsidized?  Or diabetes drugs?  One has to assume that it's entirely for politics and getting the support of his radical liberal base, while being able to give a free handout to would-be voters this fall.

This is just one aspect of Obamacare.  Just wait until its tentacles reach deeper into our individual, private lives.

Justin Credible is a contributing editor for Habledash.