The Contraceptive Mandate from the Department of HHS is actually both a contraceptive and an abortion mandate, since it includes abortion and sterilizations too. It has been a big blow to religious liberties, especially to the Catholic Church, and others who oppose contraceptives and abortion.
Nancy Frazier from the Catholic News Service explained in an article recently a couple of these myths. One of them is that the term “self insurance” is a type of insurance mainly used by church organizations to avoid paying for abortion and contraceptives. However, Frazier points out from the Congressional Research Service and the Kaiser Family Foundation that the percentage of Americans on self-insured plans was 44 percent in 1999 to 60 percent in 2011, and it is unclear as to what percentage of those are affiliated with a Church. She also pointed out that 96% of those who work in large companies, with over 5,000 workers, were on a self insured plan.
Another claim is that contraceptive coverage in health plans would save money and lead to fewer unintended pregnancies. However, the author mentions a survey called Reimbursement Intelligence that covered 15 pharmacy directors covering 100 million employees found that 50 percent thought it would be more expensive, 30% didn’t know what to expect, and virtually 0% thought it would save money. Only 20% of them thought it would be cost-neutral.
One other myth that is probably better known is that 99% of Catholic women have used contraceptives. However, this came from an April 2011 Guttmacher Institute through national surveys from 2006 to 2008, but it was concluded by Frazier that 40 percent of those surveyed said they never attended mass or went less than once a month.
Now these were only some of the myths out there, but it gives us a very good picture as to how desperate this administration will try to pass this mandate, even if they don’t tell the truth and break the first amendment. Also, you’ll notice from the headlines that the mandate is always referred to as the “Contraceptive Mandate” but we must remember that this mandate not only covers contraceptives, but also abortion and related drugs. And a couple of weeks ago, Obama modified his mandate in what he called a “compromise” although that is curious because the chief critic of his policy, the Catholic Church never agreed with the new mandate. In fact many consider the new mandate worse than the original.
It reminds me a couple of years ago when Bart Stupak, the Democratic politician from Michigan, said he would support the ObamaCare only if funding for abortions was taken out. Obama said that would be the case, but of course, that did not turn out to hold true.
As the Speaker of the House John Boehner said, if Obama doesn’t reverse this mandate, then it is the responsibility of Congress to do that. Life and pregnancy our beautiful gifts from God, not a disease like the HHS wants us to believe. Not only do politicians have to be active in expressing their concerns for this mandate, but all of us citizens also need to speak out and work as a team.
