10 Feb 2012 White House Claim that Religious Employers Would Not Be Subsidizing Mandated Anti-Pregnancy Coverage is Morally Meaningless

Insurers Would Pay for New Mandate on Them with Savings Brought About by Blocked Pregnancies

Washington, D.C. – Amy Ridenour, chairman of the National Center for Public Policy Research, is responding to claims made by the White House and HHS today that religious institutions would not be subsidizing anti-pregnancy coverage under the mandate “compromise” regulation announced by President Obama.

Ridenour said:

President Obama’s “compromise” mandatory birth control/early abortifacient regulation has a huge problem within it the White House should have foreseen. If it didn’t, it is incompetent; if it did, it is going out of its way to offend Catholics and others opposed to the mandate on religious grounds.

Specifically, the White House claims that religious institutions will not be indirectly funding birth control and early abortifacients under the new, compromise, mandate, because health costs go down when women use birth control. Thus, the White House argues, there no employer-to-insurer subsidy occurring when a religious employer triggers the mandate, as the insurer will pay for the benefit out of “savings.”

Here’s the problem: The “savings” substantially comes from pregnancy avoidance. That’s what religious-based opponents of the birth control/early abortifacient mandate objected to in the first place.

The Catholic Bishops and others who object to the mandate for religious reasons can’t accept Obama’s alleged compromise without compromising the principles that brought them into this debate.

The National Center for Public Policy Research, founded in 1982, is a non-partisan, free-market, independent conservative think-tank with over 100,000 recent supporters. Contributions to it are tax-deductible and greatly appreciated.

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