Women won in Washington this week. The Obama administration's decision to protect the birth control coverage benefit that is part of health care reform will have a real and direct impact on millions of Americans--who will now have insurance that covers birth control without deductibles or co-pays. This will save women who use oral contraceptives about $15 to $50 a month , adding up to hundreds of dollars a year--and even more for those that need access to longer acting methods, like IUDs, which can cost up to $800.
For women in America, this is a watershed moment. The birth control coverage benefit is one of the most important breakthroughs for women's health care in a generation. Birth control will be treated like any other preventive prescription, and it will be more accessible than it's ever been.
This benefit matters to women from all corners of this country and from all walks of life--and when it mattered most, the Obama administration stood strong against efforts to take it away.
The Obama administration reached this decision after hearing from major medical societies, patient advocates, members of Congress, and, most importantly, regular Americans who disagreed with efforts to undermine the birth control benefit. Indeed, a small but vocal group of women's health opponents launched a campaign to pressure the administration to exempt religiously affiliated universities, hospitals, social service agencies, and schools from the birth control benefit. The law already allows religious organizations like churches and church associations to deny birth control coverage for their employees--an exemption Planned Parenthood disagrees with. But that wasn't enough for opponents of contraception.
If they had had their way, nurses, secretaries, teachers, and other workers of all faiths would have been cut off from access to affordable birth control. This, despite the fact that birth control use is nearly universal in the United States, even among Catholics. According to the Guttmacher Institute, 99 percent of all sexually experienced women and 98 percent of sexually experienced Catholic women will have used birth control at some point in their lives.
But women and families weren't about to stand by. They knew what Planned Parenthood knew: women should have access to birth control without co-pays or deductibles, regardless of where they work. That's why the birth control benefit is one of the most popular provisions in health care reform. And it's why we heard from more than 100,000 women and men across the country, letting us know why birth control matters to them and why it's so important that this benefit be protected.
The Obama administration's decision to protect the birth control benefit is the right decision for women and families, and it's good health policy. Doctors and public health experts agree that increased access to birth control prevents unintended pregnancies and improves health outcomes for women and their families, as women whose pregnancies are unintended are less likely to get prenatal care and are at greater risk for conditions such as premature and low birth weight babies. In addition, birth control can protect women against debilitating symptoms of endometriosis and can reduce the risk of ovarian cancer.
No employer should dictate whether their workers have access to affordable birth control, especially since it's basic health care. And especially when it would deny those workers a benefit other Americans have access to under health care reform. Fortunately for Americans, the Obama administration rejected this effort today. We applaud the administration's decision. And millions of women across America do, too.
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It's funny because people are ready to accept it coming from Christians churches, but if a Muslim center refused to provide health care coverage for cirrhosis because their religion is against drinking alcohol, Christians would be the first to call them fundamentalist and make them pay.
Those who benefit do not have the right to have someone else buy them something.
Those whose rights are violated have a right to purchase whatever policies they want or not as a means of enticing people to work for them. This is an unjustified abuse of government power.
I have read this same misconception OVER and OVER again, to the point where I wonder how these people are competant to manage their own health care. You are being seriously misinformed by people who flat out lie and distort the facts to press their own agenda.
If a Catholic-run hospital does not want to support coverage for contraception, they can opt out. This is already written into existing health care laws. This does not FORCE people to pay for something that their religious beliefs prohibit. THEY ARE FREE TO CHOOSE!
This bill states one thing: If a religious organization receives FEDERAL (TAXPAYER) funds,
they are required to offer health insurance that covers contraceptive options.
You can't take taxpayer money and enforce religious discrimination. It's that simple.
If your insurance provider decides that giving you free or low-cost contraceptive services SAVES THEM MONEY, they will offer it. This is not some freebee government giveaway. It is NOT funded by the taxpayers. It just ensures that when YOU PURCHASE HEALTH INSURANCE YOU WILL GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR!!!
Other than the fact that the employer isn't objecting to it because they don't want the added cost (which would be negligible, if there even were any added cost). The employer is objecting on religious grounds. At that point, it becomes shoving your beliefs down my throat, not to mention discrimination against my religious beliefs if I don't share yours..
Moreover, I don't want government to legislate what I may or may not do to my body. Period.
Destroy this male tyranny now.
One man for women's freedom.
This is also an unprecedented attack on the religious freedom and freedom of conscience that should alarm every citizen of the US. Catholic schools, hospitals, and social service agencies receive no exemption, although the employees who take jobs with faith-based agencies agree to abide by their employers' policies. Organizations with conscience objections should not have to subsidize elective birth control.
As long as they accept Federal funding, they do not get to deny medication to people based solely on gender.
And what difference does it make how much it costs to cover a pregnancy? That's what real health care is, taking care of the person's health, including mothers and babies. That's what the government should be providing, if anything. But even truly necessary health care - you know - the kind that actually saves lives - is subject to co-pays and limits and is not mandated by the government.
As to your previous comment about the federal funding, this has nothing to do with accepting federal funding. There is no religious exemption for private Catholic schools and colleges or other organizations who get no federal funding. The religious exemption is so narrow that almost no one qualifies. This is part of a strategy to marginalize any church that does not get in line with the Planned Parenthood agenda.
Planned Parenthood is a eugenics program to cull the population of undesirables, all of us as citizens of American. One of President Obama's first acts as President was to offer millions in taxpayer dollars to African nations for contraceptives and as usual no one cared. More eugenics.
I know that its old-fashion for women to value their bodies, but somehow I believe that we had a better society for our children to grow up in. Stop the maddness. God is watching.
This rule also allows married women to choose for themselves when they would like to have children. Did you even stop to think for a second about who the women are who are sing these pills? No, you are too busy shoving your religion into other people's body parts.
And since you do not bother to actually learn about anything, contraceptives in Africa PREVENT THE CONTINUED SPREAD OF AIDS. They prevent horrendous and painful DEATH of mothers and children, mothers who, by the way are married, and thus even by your holy roller standards are allowed to have sex. You consider it more moral to refuse to help sick and dying women and to just sit back and call them names?
God is also watching you and your bitter judgement of people you do not know. Judge not Lest Ye be Judged.
Texas has an abstinence only policy taught in schools (it's illegal to discuss safe sex) and since it's inception the state has seen exploding amounts of teen pregnancies and STIs. Much higher than any other state. You got a whole generation of young people having sex in Texas where the state purposefully keeps those kids ignorant of their options.
Keep your religion to yourself, I don't believe in your god.
Oh, and I'm not giving Obama any credit for this - I'm giving that to his wife and daughters and any other female relatives, who I would be willing to bet are making their opinions pretty clear.
If a person or employer buys a policy, then yes, they're buying that policy. They have a right to buy a policy of their choosing.
"whatever happened to helping the poor and less fortunate?"
It's still alive and well. Here's some charitable organizations:
http://www.forbes.com/lists/2005/14/Revenue_1.html
A question in return, why would being charitable imply that they ought to be forced to purchase something against their will?
"Or are you only up for helping members of your own church"
The fact that they do help people not of their church is why the exemption won't cover them. If they only helped people of their own faith, they would meet the exemption requirements. So, they're standing up for their right to do exactly what you're claiming they don't.
Where do you work? Do they really allow you to pick and choose what you pay for? Do you object to your prescription drug plan covering Viagra? Do you get to opt out of paying for that? What about surgical procedures like tubal ligations, vasectomies or circumcisions? I've worked in state government, a multinational corporation, and I own a small business. No where was I allowed a "conscience" exemption to refuse to pay for things I didn't morally approve of. The logistics of that would be a nightmare, setting aside any other issues.
further, the misandric and sickening argument about viagra has NOTHING to do with the issue of birth control. if anyone wants to take away the pittance of coverage that most insurance companies give men with erectile dysfunction (a DISEASE) and at $6/per per month only; then let's stop making ANY insurance payments for endometreosis or ovarian cancer or breast cancer or any other EQUIVALENT FEMALE DISEASE.
MISANDRY is alive and well in AMERICA, where men are FORCED to pay for WOMEN'S contraception via our tax dollars, and as a gay man, i could care LESS about you contraception, but MEN are FORCED to pay for their OWN contraception.
the hypocrisy is sickening; yet WOMEN r the victims, huh? in what REAL world would that be true?
This can easily turn into a discussion of the problems with private insurance, why a public government-run insurance option would be beneficial, etc. - and this would be a valuable discussion to have. But as the current system stands, private companies negotiate coverage and benefit options with insurers. The dispute here is that religious organizations are now being mandated to cover something to which they morally object. Whether or not you or I agree with their objection is moot. The issue has to do with their constitutional right to NOT offer coverage for something that conflicts with their religious principles.
That company accepts federal dollars and as such has to follow federal employment rules. They do not get to make up their own when it is discriminatory against an entire gender, especially when it is in the name of forcing a religious belief on people who are not of that religion. They are denying the covering of medical treatments based soley on gender, it is the governments jo to protect the rights of those facing discrimination from their employers.
Now, however, though it violates nobodies rights when someone chooses not to purchase such coverage for themselves or others, their rights are violated when they are forced to purchase that which they do not wish to.
Furthermore, a question for the foresight: If you give the government the authority to dictate what private people must buy from private insurers, what is to stop the next anti-birth control person from ruling the opposite? You can't give the government authority for such intervention only if they happen to agree with your opinion. You give them the authority, period.
Your auto insurance covers drunk drivers, and your home owner's insurance covers people who burned down their homes while smoking in bed.
I'm sure if you looked at those policies you could find many things covered that you don't approve of. Should the laws be rewritten to exclude ALL of those things?
If you don't want to buy birth control, no one is forcing you to. And I have no doubt whatsoever that you strenuously oppose safety net programs that would help women raise the babies they had because they couldn't afford birth control.
However I do expect the Director of the organization to know that birth has been for many generations. Even the pill has been around for at least 2.