Religious liberty: The latest target of ObamaCareBy Grace-Marie TurnerThe Obama administration announced today it will wait for a year (coincidentally until after the elections) before requiring religious organizations to comply with an ObamaCare mandate that they provide coverage for contraception -- including controversial drugs that can abort an early pregnancy. This is an outrage. This all started with a decision by the Obama administration last summer listing the "preventive" services that must be covered by health plans under ObamaCare without any charge to patients. The list included contraception. This is another assault on the Constitution and the First Amendment's guarantee of religious liberty. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) called the federal regulation an "unprecedented threat to individual and institutional religious freedom." The ObamaCare regulation gives faith-based institutions, like Catholic universities and hospitals, the choice of violating the fundamental tenets of their faith by covering the federally mandated coverage in their employee health plans, or dropping health insurance for their employees -- in which case they would be fined for violating the law's employer mandate. Belmont Abbey, a private Catholic college located in North Carolina, is being joined by several other universities in suing the government over the mandate. The administration gave religious organizations a very narrow exemption, only if the group's employees are primarily of one faith and primarily serve members of that faith. Belmont Abbey says that Catholic universities that employ non-Catholic professors or Catholic hospitals that provide care to non-Catholics don't qualify. Even Jesus wouldn't qualify as religious under the regulation's definition, the Bishops wrote in earlier comments about the rule! USCBB president Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York has established a Bishop's committee on religious liberty, headed by Bridgeport, CT, Bishop William Lori. The committee is going to have a great deal of work to do in defending the faith against ObamaCare's many assaults. As I told the wonderfully faithful Kathryn Lopez for a recent article she wrote for the National Catholic Register, There is a war on religion from the Left, and it is very dangerous to the institutions that make our civil society function. The Catholic Church historically has been a vital part of the safety net -- providing aid for the poor, care for the sick, shelter and food for the homeless, and care for mothers in need, as a few examples. The health care law threatens to tear gaping holes in that safety net by forcing Catholic health plans to cover contraception, by denying funds to Catholic adoption agencies, and ultimately by forcing taxpayers -- including Catholics -- to fund abortion. This is dangerous to the very fabric of our society. It's a crucial reason why the whole health law, with its centralized control over health care decisions, must not stand. 
State exchanges lag: The president visited Disney World on Thursday, but the real Fantasyland announcement came from a White House report on Wednesday pretending that states are proceeding to set up ObamaCare health exchanges. The White House claims that 28 states are "on their way" to establishing exchanges, clearly trying to deceive states into believing "all the other states are moving ahead, so we might as well, too." Nothing could be further from the truth. This chart tells the real story:  (Source: Kaiser Family Foundation) Only a handful of states are making meaningful progress, and most are waiting to see what happens with the Supreme Court decision. Louisiana, Florida, Arkansas, Texas, and now Wisconsin are refusing to take any action. Even big blue states like New York and California that are on board with ObamaCare have made little progress in actually setting up exchanges. And the red states that have taken action are doing it only as a defensive maneuver to keep the federal government from moving in and taking even greater control over their health care markets. This report was a desperate move by the White House to try to show progress on exchanges in light of strong state resistance. If states refuse to set up these hugely expensive, complex, and intrusive exchanges, the federal government will be required to set them up. Assuming the feds could even do it, that would lead to a whole new wave of resistance against the unpopular law.
Kudos to the House: After the administration acknowledged there was no way to implement the ObamaCare's long-term care program, a "Ponzi scheme of the first order," the House Ways and Means Committee voted this week to strike the CLASS Act provision from the health overhaul law. The Energy and Commerce Committee, which also has jurisdiction, reported out a similar bill in November. The measure is ready to move to the floor of the House for a full vote within the next two weeks. Wisconsin Democrat Ron Kind joined a united GOP caucus in support of the repeal bill, (HR 1173), approved 23-13 by the Ways and Means Committee. Three Democrats joined all the Republicans in supporting repeal in the earlier Energy and Commerce vote. It's crucial to repeal this program. If the Supreme Court were to allow the individual mandate to stand, it would mean that a future Congress could require us to buy long-term care insurance, just as they require us under ObamaCare to buy health insurance. And that would only be the beginning.
Jobs. Jobs. Jobs. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce's latest small business survey reinforced the fears that ObamaCare already is killing jobs. It found that 74% of small businesses surveyed say the recent health care law makes it harder for their business to hire more employees. And it is only going to get worse! The best jobs program that Congress could offer is to repeal ObamaCare. back to top | 
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