Can anyone give me a reason why this new contraception “compromise” is anything but a win? Obama just got some TV time for a full-throated endorsement of contraception (“no woman’s health should depend on who she is, or where she works, or how much money she makes […] period”). Catholic opposition is now split between a bunch of old, out-of-touch geezers (the Bishops) and the Catholic Health Association, led by a charismatic nun, Sister Carol Keenan, who is happy with the compromise. The CHA, not the Bishops, are the ones who speak for the Catholic hospitals. So, Mike Huckabee’s “we are all Catholics now” talking point had a shelf life of a couple of hours. Now, Republicans who oppose this will have to come out of the closet as opponents of birth control, not supporters of Catholics. Finally, it sticks the insurance companies with the bill. I count four wins there, and zero losses, unless you count using the word “compromise” to describe getting what you wanted all along (mandated coverage for contraception) as losing.
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arguingwithsignposts
Because, apparently, he is worse than Bush! He sold us out! That’s what I gather from the wailing and gnashing of teeth in the three threads below this one.
Joseph Nobles
I severely want to believe that Obama sold us out.
Mouse Tolliver
From Huffpo:
They won’t be satisfied until every impoverished family in America has at least 19 children.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Agree with Arguingwithsignposts – Obama is worse than Bush! He sold us out! FACT and doesn’t require any supporting information.
I would think people would learn by now an Obama “compromise” is just a kiss afterwards and something to let the otherwise leaders move on. But being all emmo is more fun.
Villago Delenda Est
It’s a win. True, there is not a smoking crater where the USCCB, Tweety, Dionne, and Shields used to be standing, but the fact of the matter is, contraception will be covered by health insurance now, and there’s nothing the red beanie brigade can do to stop it.
Jamie
well, I’m ok with this. But i’m a liberal so what do I know.
4tehlulz
I’m sure Glenn will come up with a reason that this is a sellout.
pragmatism
twitter twatter that made me laugh: “I bet that if altar boys could get pregnant, the Catholic Church would have a different stance on contraception”.
AxelFoley
Will the PL/Firebaggers be happy with this?
Hell, why am I asking?
Seebach
I just wanted to repost this here, too:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/10/cpac-2012-rap_n_1268571.html?1328895197
White guy rap plus calling a black guy a n—– by accident/on purpose
Villago Delenda Est
Uh…oops, I meant “ZOMG Obambi has sold us out, again, he’s worse than Bush!”
Sorry, lost my head there with my previous comment.
Gin & Tonic
Did he rip Cardinal Dolan’s head off in the presser? Huh? I didn’t see it. What a loser.
Martin
@Villago Delenda Est: This. It’s unequivocally a win, and it’s serving as a pretty good litmus test of who actually cares about the issue and who’s just in it for the emo.
Jamie
It’s time to change the language and ask why the catholic church wants to increase the number of abortions in the country.
Emma
I have come to the unhappy realization that a lot of liberals want our own version of Dick Cheney. Getting results doesn’t much matter, getting revenge does.
Me, I think anything that marginalizes the conservative creepy crawlies is a great thing.
Linda Featheringill
So we won.
It looks to me like “they” had been working on this for a long time and staged a well-coordinated attack on the Administration and Obama and Co. won the conflict in something like 3 days.
Is that what happened?
[singing “Kung Fu in the morning, Kung Fu all through the night. You give me Kung Fu . . . . . “]
gwangung
@Villago Delenda Est:
Since there isn’t a smoking crater, it doesn’t count as a win to some people.
Jay C
Heh – President Obama’s done exactly what I thought he would do on the “birth control mandate” flap: make a half-step compromise, step forward with Secy. Sebelius to get in front of the issue, and toss the ball back in the Opposition’s court: where they will surely fumble it, and end up looking like fanatics/bigots/sex-obsessed fools (all too easy) – and spin the coverage back to make it about health issues, and health-insurance; and leave the GOP to spearhead an unpopular and going-nowhere crusade against contraception per se.
Yep. Win.
Next time I’ll be sure to get my predictions down in the comments threads early: maybe I’ll win the Internet one day…
AxelFoley
@Mouse Tolliver:
They want a country full of Duggars?
gwangung
@Emma:
Oh, I’ve known this since the health care debates.
Yeah, results matter more to me than checking off ideological talking points and crushing the enemy.
Triassic Sands
Experts, schmexperts. The only question is what would Dr. Jesus do?
Science is just Satan dressed in a lab coat.
Churches need to be exempt from any and all laws that interfere with their right to express their bigotry to the maximum possible degree.
wrb
Yea but it was a “feckless” victory.
Tom S
What Andrew Sullivan would call a “meep-meep” moment…
4tehlulz
b-b-b-but the Guardian says Obama backed down!
Xecky Gilchrist
That’s what I gather from the wailing and gnashing of teeth in the three threads below this one.
Indeed, this morning has been interesting. As though I heard millions of Reedy Nasal Whines break out which were suddenly silenced.
(mostly silenced – Whiskey Fire hasn’t done an update yet, f’rinstance.)
middlewest
Even the Daily Kos is on board with this.
Villago Delenda Est
You know, I don’t see the red beanie brigade doing a war dance of victory over this yet.
Which would seem to indicate that they, too, were looking for a result. One they’re not getting.
AxelFoley
@Linda Featheringill:
This is why President Obama is a bad muthafucka. They plan in advance and come at him with flurries, and this brotha breaks their combos and finishes them off with a hadokken.
Flawless Victory.
Mino
Thank the FSM for sensible nuns.
Hal
One question. Why didn’t Obama do this in the first place? It seems weird to go in the direction he did, and then fall back on a compromise that seems to be pleasing most parties.
JCT
Gee, say the women of America, who should I vote for? This guy or the Robot who thinks it is OK for states to outlaw contraception. Or maybe that serial philanderer who agrees with him? Or that guy who dresses like Fred Rodgers and sounds like he was teleported from the Dark Ages.
So complicated.
Jamie
Obama repeatedly makes the mistake of assuming that the voters are adults
Butch
Mr. Charles P. Pierce doesn’t see it as a win. His perspective is worth a read.
jacy
I, for one, would like the term “low-info liberals” to be applied to everyone who, when confronted with the word “cave” (I’m looking at YOU, TPM!), retires to their Sully-issued fainting couches and strangles themselves with their clutched pearls.
Take a deep breath, dammit, and read up before you start screamin’ about the bus tire marks on your backside.
eta: I forgot to mention either being locked in or out of the veal pen, because I can’t remember which is supposed to be worse. Damned kids with their memes and and whatnot. Now get off my lawn and you, no, you can’t have your ball back. Hhhmph.
MikeJ
@gwangung:
Not just health care. Look at the way Obama won the debt ceiling fight, gave the right absolutely nothing and got a trillion dollars in cuts to DOD and people on the left still whine that he caved, that he always “per-compromises”.
Hill Dweller
I was glad to see the President point out doctors prescribe birth control for reasons other than actual birth control. This sort of gets lost in the coverage.
FlipYrWhig
As far as the blogosphere goes, any headline with the word “compromise” in it is the greatest betrayal EVAR! That way you can tell how you feel about Obama with a simple text search, rather than by “reading” or “thinking.”
General Stuck
Nope. But it is fascinating to read the reactions from right and left activist/ideologues. And illuminates, imo, the self absorbed nature of these folks. Everything in their world is about them and their needs for red meat sustenance. While mostly outside their echo chambers, the actual bulk of the electorate only cares about the policy bottom line, and how it will effect them getting/or not getting something they want. And virtually everybody wants contraception, save for a few devout Catholic types. And most of these folks, at least the true swing voter types, appreciate a politician that at once meets that need, and soothes the emo some of the opposition. And they especially like it in their presnits.
The pol angle here is Obama impressing indie swing voters, but also another gettable voting block. Devout Catholics who have been voting GOP, but with apprehension lately from all the xenophobia. Obama showed he heard their concerns on their religious views and made an effort to accommodate them. That is playing national politics, and playing them well. And in the end also accommodates the emos on both sides with something to be outraged about. The mothers milk of protest. Then there is the Politico class. Wanking as usual for the food fight to carry on.
Yes, I am an Obot. bite me.
milo
Seems like the first actual evidence of 11 dimensional chess to me.
AxelFoley
@Xecky Gilchrist:
ROFL
I love how we can use a pop culture reference for any thread here.
MikeJ
@Hal:
It seems weird to wind up with a plan that pleases most people in an election year?
Southern Beale
No. Obama pwned the Republicans again. It’s hilarious.
Once again the GOP showed they are stuck in the past, trying to roll the clock back to 1950-whatever on women’s rights. Obama took the church-conscience issue off the table completely, in so doing he’s backed the Republicans into a corner. Now they’ll have to argue against contraception, which is a pretty ridiculous and unpopular position to take.
Someone needs to put up that CHILL THE FUCK OUT I GOT THIS picture of Obama up.
Culture of Truth
OBOT
jl
@Villago Delenda Est:
I kind of agree. After issuing righteous blasts in comments yesterday, I did some digging on the internet and my understanding before I went beddy by last night was that these totalitarian regulations were actually draft regulations that were going to be revised after public comment anyway.
And from Obama’s statement this morning, that seems to be the case.
But with the administration’s odd passive behavior and misreporting in the press, how would most people know that?
So, if women can get coverage for birth control, and insurance companies can be jaw boned into paying, and various churches (will name no names to be civil) can keep their pristine morals on their arbitrary obsession with reproductive health, then, I guess it could be called “win”.
It could also be called an acceptable result in the midst of widespread public confusion about what is going on.
I guess Obama wants to play it this way. I don’t see why people and institutions that engage in very cynical political maneuvering should not be called out more clearly in real time, and I do not see why the press should not be called out for misreporting basic facts of policy making process.
aimai
Holy (sic) shit. This is the contraceptive equivalent of Obama making fun of the Donald while knowing that he’s ordered the hit on Osama bin Laden. That was a fucking thing of beauty to watch. The only thing I wish he’d said is that “religious liberty inheres in the individual, not just in an established church. Women have the choice in how to excercise their own religious beliefs and no church has the right to prevent any individual woman from accessing the health care she chooses. That would be an infringement on her religious liberty.”
aimai
Wee Bey
Metaphor Comin’:
I have no problem occasionally spiking the ball.
But you know who HAS to spike the ball, every time? People who, deep down, don’t know if they’ll ever get back to the end zone.
Our President? He hands the ball to the referee. He’s been there before, and he expects to be back.
The people who look to shit on every victory of his, no matter what? I really think that deep down, they’re not liberal. Or, more accurately, they don’t think liberal ideals will win out.
CarolDuhart2
Yes. The poorer, the better-and by the way, not very educated so that they believe everything their betters tell them.
Google “Demographic Winter” sometimes to gain an insight into their massive anxiety. They literally believe that the white race is dying and being taken over by the “brown-black-Muslim” complexity. They think it’s because white folks become too educated and liberal-and selfishly refuse to have the required 10 children.
Martin
@Linda Featheringill:
I doubt it. My guess is that they had a bunch of options, they picked the previous one for a variety of reasons. Everyone on the right shits the bed, so they go back and choose the next best option. If the baseline was that contraception would have to be in there for anyone not voluntarily affiliated with the church, then the old plan was pretty much the only way to get there. That was the compromise position, among the ones they likely had. This is actually worse because now even healthcare plans for the church themselves will have contraception – which the old plan didn’t require.
But the church bitched about the payment issue, so the payment issue got addressed. They’re idiots for doing this because they never presented a compromised solution other than to effectively remove contraception coverage for everyone, which is a clear political loser, just plain stupid, and clearly not a position that Obama would support. So now they’re stuck.
AxelFoley
@milo:
You must have just started paying attention then.
Wee Bey
@MikeJ:
And is right on policy.
burnspbesq
Any day that the USCCB gets its nose rubbed in it is a good day for the Catholic faithful. Thank you, Mr. President.
slag
What I liked about this speech is that it put women’s health and personal sovereignty on the same moral plain as religious liberty. Nicely done!
In the process, it kind of also made the wankers in the Church who were objecting to providing healthcare for women look immoral (although I’m sure some will beg to differ on that score).
Smart speech. Nicely stated. Thumbs up.
Also, why do we have to gin up the Firebagger rage every single time something like this comes up? This is an election year, people. Try to keep some doors open, for chrissakes! Friggin Obot, Dear Leader Balloonbaggers!
pseudonymous in nc
Which really meant “we are all Catholic bishops”, not a group that you want to be voluntarily claiming solidarity with.
Obama and Sebelius clearly knew in advance that insurance companies would be prepared to take up the slack for coverage, given that pregnancies are more expensive than contraceptives. I still don’t like sacrificing the principle of conforming plans to the Catholic medical-industrial complex, but I do think the administration had this in their back pocket all week.
rlrr
@Mino:
band name
gex
@gwangung: I do have to admit, I wouldn’t mind a smoking crater. I just don’t need to turn on Obama if it doesn’t go down like that.
Mino
@CarolDuhart2: How does one pay for 10 children on minimum wage? Reality TV?
DAN
The opposition is framing this as though the government is forcing priests to perform abortions at Sunday mass.
Which, if it was, would get me back to church.
J.W. Hamner
Assuming it’s implemented in the way everybody thinks it will be: i.e. these “free” contraceptives are paid for by premiums that are equal between secular and religious institutions then it’s certainly a win.
The only way to come out against it is with the ever popular “fungibility of money” argument, which can only really come across as being anti-birth control.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Jesus fuck me hard for a motherfucker
also I join my librel brethren and sistren in feelings of betrayal, bus-tire tracks all across my back and I didn’t even have any fun. Veal pen shit sandwich argle bargle secret republican Howard Rodham Kucinich
jl
I guess I like a more Truman style, where names are named, and words like ‘jackass’ and ‘bullshit’ are used at appropriate times. As commenter said above, I would like to see some smoking craters where bad pundits, reporters and cynical political manipulators were standing yesterday.
But if the politics of it works in the current climate, OK with me.
Maybe in the eyes of important voting blocks, there are smoking craters, I just can’t see them. I have to trust Obama knows what he is doing.
pseudonymous in nc
@burnspbesq:
And after a few days of strife in comments, on this we can so very heartily agree. And I’m sure there’ll be a few celebratory cups of tea (and halves of Guinness) in parishes where the priests care a lot more about social justice than this stuff.
Tom65
I’ll hold my celebration until Bill Donohue has spoken.
dmsilev
@aimai: When Obama was a State Senator, he had a reputation among his colleagues of being a very dangerous person to play poker with.
That skill set seems to be serving him well in Washington.
gwangung
@gex: Yeah, me, too. Wouldn’t mind smoking craters on the landscapes, but first and foremost is getting things done.
On the other hand, we may get those smoking craters from self inflicted action from the enemy….
Wag
@Hal:
In order to jujitsu his enemies into revealing their true intentions.
pseudonymous in nc
@J.W. Hamner:
While insurance companies will try to sell coverage add-ons, what they really like is standard terms written on standard risk pools: it makes it easier to work with actuarial assessments and balance the books.
Hal
@MikeJ:
No, I mean I’m wondering why the Obama Admin didn’t make this their policy in the first place. Perhaps they thought any policy would initially be controversial (at least to the Bishops and Repubs running for President) and kept this policy under wraps as a plan B (no birth control pun intended) in case the first didn’t win? I’ll assume Obama just liked the other policy better.
Felanius Kootea
Now let’s see what the white Catholic male pundits have to say. Do they go with the nuns who actually run the hospitals or the Bishops on this one? Do they acknowledge that most Catholic Universities already provide birth control coverage to their employees? (Stupid questions, I know.) Maybe we’ll get a few Catholic women who run hospitals in the discussion this time?
Chuck Butcher
Well, this much is pretty easy – everybody else will get to subsidize the Bishops’ POV. The ins cos sure the hell ain’t gonna pay for this on their own. You can do with that what you like.
Villago Delenda Est
Mind you, I’d be absolutely cool with the smoking crater.
But living well is the best revenge, and the red beaning brigade is seething right now.
I feel their anger.
Darius
@Villago Delenda Est:
Dionne’s already come around. It’s not a smoking crater, but it’ll do.
Davis X. Machina
By November you’ll be hard-pressed to remember what the hell it was all about.
Quemoy and Matsu, anyone?
Cat Lady
@Wag:
It’s almost like he knows what he’s doing. He does this every single time, and the goopers fall for it every single time. Obama must just laugh and laugh.
taylormattd
@Gin & Tonic: No, no, here is one that I guarantee will be said:
jl
@gwangung: Yeah, since GOP goes more insanely out of step with majority with each administration head fake, it might play out that way. Why bomb them, when they look geared up to bomb themselves every time you do something, anything, scratch your nose, flip a light switch, whatever?
I hope so.
VincentN
@Hal:
I think the reason Obama played it this way was that if he had started with the reasonable position the Republicans would have skewered it as socialism as they do with everything Obama proposes. By starting with an ‘extreme’ position and falling back to a ‘compromise’ he once again looks like the reasonable one.
This is why the liberals who think perception matters more than results annoy me. They’re wrong about the perception angle. Most regular Americans will see Obama being openminded and be reassured that he’s pro-woman without being anti-religion. And most Americans are religious and have been primed to regard Democrats suspiciously when it comes to religion. Obama neutered that angle before the Republicans could exploit it.
ornery_curmudgeon
Thank you, Mr. President!
To all the wierdo comments attacking, lol, our own side yet again (it’s a habit and maybe obsession) … screw off. No really. People who immediately launch into attacks on those working for the same goals but who don’t fall in line with one’s exact views are demonstrating stupid, smug, arrogant short-sighted and self-defeating behavior.
But thank you, Mr. President, you did good here I think.
Villago Delenda Est
@Chuck Butcher:
Yeah, Chuck, sure. But the bishops never were actually paying for the health coverage in the first place. It’s part of the compensation package for their employees.
Contraception is now a mandate without regard to religious feelings one way or the other.
Rates will go up, slightly, but the fact of the matter is, contraception is cheaper than abortions or pregnancies brought to term. As far as the health “insurance” industry is concerned, this is a win for them, over the long haul.
Meanwhile, women get the coverage they need and deserve, and the President has pulled the rug out from beneath the Rethugs, again.
Martin
@Hal: The other policy was actually better for the church. Under the old policy nuns wouldn’t have to be covered, under this one they would. The church should have realized that the old policy was the best compromise that Obama could make. But the church tried to play this both ways and use the ‘pay for’ argument to justify denying contraception, so it appears Obama said ‘fine, we’ll go with that other plan that eliminates the pay for, but requires *everyone* be covered.’ Now the pay for argument is gone and now the church has to bitch about contraception directly which is what they tried to avoid doing in the first place.
Brachiator
I don’t know. Were teleprompters involved?
Yeah, clearly a win. All that’s left is the inevitable political puppet show of the Sunday pundit wankfests.
handsmile
Saints preserve us!
Much like an altar boy in a cloak room, the USCCB and their political inquisitors just got reamed by their overreach. Pants down around their ankles, their implacable misogyny and hypocrisy on public policy issues has been exposed for all its moral puniness.
Thank you, black Jesus!
And this too on a day when the Vatican and Italian media are all atwitter over an alleged-and quite conspiratorial-plot to assassinate the Pope:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/feb/10/plot-kill-pope-italian-media
gwangung
Keep your enemies angry…they’re more likely to make even bigger mistakes.
Bulworth
Last week I thought this was a pretty significant fail by team Obama. Now I just think the prez got the reichwing and bishops to punk themselves. What do they do now? Wail? About what? All the thunder the bishops started to whip up just got thrown into a ball of compromise and insurance switcharoo. Pretty hard for them to claim their religious liberty is being violated now. #Winning
Emma
@jl: I guess Obama wants to play it this way. I don’t see why people and institutions that engage in very cynical political maneuvering should not be called out more clearly in real time, and I do not see why the press should not be called out for misreporting basic facts of policy making process.
Because then it becomes about them. The press pitches hissy fits every time someone tries to call them out. The institutions posture and screech and the press gives them cover. This time, it’s here it is, lump it. They are given no time to try to recast the issue.
Satanicpanic
Damn it feels good to be an O-Bot
jl
@Chuck Butcher: If some one wanted to piss on the outcome, that would be the angle. Why should others subsidize their dumb, almost universally flouted, arbitrary special doctrine, that they came up with themselves relative recently, for obscure ideological reasons?
No good reason to, and case could be made it is public subsidy for specific religious sects.
Not sure any other outcome would be politically feasible, though.
slag
@Cat Lady:
Let’s not overstate the case here. Doing so then impels one to recall more than a few fuckups over the last few years.
taylormattd
@Xecky Gilchrist:
Omg, you win the thread.
Felanius Kootea
@Chuck Butcher: Umm, offering the pill is cheaper for the insurance companies than covering a(n unwanted) pregnancy. Even if the US taxpayer gets stuck with the bill; it’s one I have no problem paying (and I wouldn’t be surprised if 51% of the population agrees).
Davis X. Machina
@taylormattd: I’m not sure any iteration of the present transportation bill is really designed to cope with the sheer number of people who are Under The Bus…..
Cue Roy Scheider from Jaws….
Dr. Loveless
@Jay C:
Yep. A win. This is what 11-dimensional chess looks like.
Rome Again
@Jamie:
Yup, I had this same thought. Thanks!
AxelFoley
@taylormattd:
Basically what Hal is already saying on this thread.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@taylormattd: are you quoting or predicting? Of course that strikes me as too succinct for most of the Disappointment junkies I’ve seen around the tubes.
CarolDuhart2
@Mino: They think money drops from the sky. These bishops have probably never had to work for wages besides whatever summer jobs they had in seminary. The church provides for them everything in exchange for some ritual work and preaching from time to time.
I’m not talking about the parish guy who teaches at school, or works at a food bank, or the monks who collectively take care of needy kids-the frontline folks who at least get to talk to ordinary people once in a while. I’m talking about the pampered princes who only see the rich lay folks if they see ordinary people at all. They have no idea how things have changed economically for ordinary people.
How health care provided by the charity hospital has disappeared along with the city clinic. How it costs much more to simply have a child, let alone raise that kid to 18.
Comrade Javamanphil
@Tom65: His tears & whines taste almost as good as a glass of Dalwhinnie.
Woodrow/asim Jarvis Hill
@Hal:
The tell was Obama’s comment about “we planned this for next year” in the presser, if I heard it correctly.
He was going to cross this bridge after the elections, was may take-away from that comment. They clearly felt the initial rule was the compromise, and enough to get the dialogue started…if not exactly in this fashion.
They get kudos in my book for taking the anti-Contraception brigade’s fusillade and flipping the script on ’em. Also, for just standing up and saying “this should not even be a controversy. Women’s health is not negotiable.”
Martin
@Chuck Butcher:
HHS certainly has the math on this, but of the almost 100 million people that would be covered under the employer mandate, the exemption couldn’t have affected more than a few hundred thousand. So by doing this, the insurance companies are only increasing their costs to the tune of about .1% over the previous policy – and once the actuaries get onto it, probably less because presumably the recipients of the new benefit will voluntarily opt out of it at higher rates than the general public. But the insurance companies will overall like this deal because the rider goes away and they can pull that premium back into the base at a somewhat lower rate. It’s easier for them to bill, to underwrite, and so on.
Brian R.
I’ve disagreed with mistermix plenty in the past, but he’s dead fucking on with this one. This is a win all around.
Chuck Butcher
@Villago Delenda Est:
We subsidize shit all the time, just to be clear. Now, I find further subsidizing the beanie brigade offensive but I also didn’t expect the Prez to tell them to pay up or get the the fuck out of business.
We’re going to ride this employer ins model all the way to the site of the crash and this is nothing but a symptom of the fuck up.
mistermix ... World Peace
@Darius: Fuck that Vichy motherfucker Dionne sideways. His concern trolling on this is just the residual mewing of the guilt he feels over not doing what his parish priest told him was right many years ago. Same with Mark Shields.
Gin & Tonic
@Chuck Butcher: It’s cheaper to pay for contraception than not to pay for contraception, if you look at the pool as a whole.
This is a clear win for the health ins co’s.
trollhattan
@Mouse Tolliver:
Without this, how do you propose to bring iPhone/Pad production back to our shores?
Sentient Puddle
I guess at this point, I’m more interested in how the opposition will respond to this. If the whole thing ends up that the compromise is minor tweaks, Obama comes across looking like someone seeking consensus, and the fundamentalists still want to wage this tone deaf battle, then I’m feeling pretty good about what we got out of it.
Martin
@slag:
Yeah, it’s been pretty hit/miss, but I definitely think he’s getting better at this. I think he also has had a long-term play going where he held back on some stuff until this year so that he would have a strong case to make in the election year. He really came out swinging in the SOTU, and it seems like there’s a bunch of pretty popular stuff lined up to drop before the election.
wasabi gasp
Tossing out the nutter chum just as Romney was about to innertube across the oceans of inevitability is pretty fucking brilliant.
smintheus
Here’s a question: Does the Catholic Church return donations given by anybody who works for or refers patients to abortion providers? Or sells contraceptives?
Because the premise of this hoo-hah is that the Church’s funds can’t subsidize those activities. You’d think then that those activities couldn’t subsidize the Church’s funds. The taint of money that’s fungible runs both ways.
Sasha
Oh, and win number 5? Obama gifted Santorum with an issue that will move the base away from Romney.
Tractarian
GOP-leaning pollster Rasmussen has Obama with a ten-point lead over Romney nationally
You people want a smoking crater?
Just wait until November.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@mistermix … World Peace: I figured out a while ago that Mark Shields is a nice old duffer who lives in a world that died fifty years ago, like any number of my parents’ cohort. Tweety I knew was an id-driven buffoon swathed in the Russertian delusions that he was still an lunch-bucket, hard-hat Democrat, though I did think the Bush years had forced the scales from his eyes. I’m a bit surprised that under the guise of genial, nerdy progressivism (Dionne) and smug, would-be insider-y sophistication, Lawrence O’Donnell and EJ Dionne were just another pair of Mike Barnicle-esque nitwits
Chuck Butcher
OH fer pete’s sake, where they could the ins cos have made women pay for this out of pocket or in rates. They will make it up however they do. If ins cos were hot on the idea of providing contraception they’d have been doing it right along as a matter of actuarial reality.
Legalize
WORSER THAN BUSH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Southern Beale
CPAC is full of self-hating gay Republican men trying to hook up with other self-hating gay Republican men. It’s sexytime!
Chuck Butcher
@Chuck Butcher:
If this move gets this off the Admin’s neck I’m happy enough. But acting like some great win has happened…
The Moar You Know
I used to have a kitten that discovered that she could bait her brother into leaping at her outstretched paw, smacking his head into the bookshelf every single time.
I quickly moved the bookshelf; I didn’t want a brain-damaged kitty.
I see no reason, however, to move the bookshelf for the Republicans. Obama throws the bait out there and those dumb fuckers jump at it and smash their faces every single time.
This time we get the added bonus of watching the old-guard boyfuckers leading with their chins as well.
The left does not deserve this president. I am so grateful that, in the face of nothing but sneering ingratitude, he’s decided to reenlist for another four years of thankless bullshit.
Dork
Just wait until the USSC shoots this down 5-4 on the dual stare decisis grounds of Shut Up, That’s Why and a moderate dose of Fuck You, Libbrulz
j
I think this manufactured crisis was a trap to finally get someone to proclaim that the gummint can’t tell any religion what to do. Willard fell for it.
Now they can ask Willard about polygamy, cuz the gummint says they can’t do that either, and isn’t it the same thing?
Then the Bishops can claim the right to diddle all the altar boys they want.
Hey, it’s all “religious freedoms”.
gex
@gwangung:
I’m making popcorn. Want some?
Nancy
@Butch:
And Mr. Pierce’s mail seems overwhelmingly in disagreement.
Cat Lady
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
O’Donnell backed off after David Boies took him to school. He’s teachable. Tweety, not so much.
Punchy
Y’all DO realize, right, that the minute the next health insurance premium rise is announced, it’s all going to be blamed on the Obama’s Soshulist Pill-Popping Whores Act of 2012?
gex
@Villago Delenda Est: I’d take comfort in that, but the red beanies LIKE being angry and hate-filled. They’re happiest that way, or they’d have to deal with their own issues. Issues such as, “why did I agree to never have sex?!?!”
smintheus
@Chuck Butcher:
If the Church had decided to take the other option to stop providing insurance altogether, the option it kept pretending wasn’t available to it, then employees would have bought their insurance through exchanges and taxpayers might end up subsidizing them.
Martin
@Chuck Butcher:
The insurance companies are hot on the idea of making money. Group policies are negotiated one at a time, and if the wrinkled old dudes that negotiate the policy on behalf of their employees don’t want to pay the $9 for that coverage, then they demand it be taken out, unless the state requires it be there.
Yeah, I know that only reinforces your point that the whole employer insurance model is stupid, but the gambit here is that the best path to single payer is make everyone else implement the effect of single payer out of their own pockets until they start screaming “Fuck this is stupid, why don’t we just have the government do this instead?”
Villago Delenda Est
@Southern Beale:
ROFLMAO, because it’s true!
amk
Guess the fizz has gone out for the trolls today. Can someone throw some eggs and tomahtos at tweety’s stupid face ?
xian
@jl: you mean like this speech by Obama?
mistermix ... World Peace
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Thank Tebow and his only son Bieber that I don’t watch LOD or I probably would have busted a gasket. Those white male entitled “liberal Catholics” who want to see their religion’s dogma enacted into law “out of conscience” make me want to puke.
Xenos
@Mouse Tolliver:
Is this the point where Obama declares, exasperated, “Will no-one ride me of this meddlesome non-profit law firm?”
KXB
An oldie but a goodie from Omar of The Wire, “You come at the king, you best not miss.”
OzoneR
@Hal:
Remember when the public option died and people kept complaining he should’ve started with single payer and compromised his way to the public option?
slag
@Martin: I want to believe so. It seems like it.
But unlike some of my friends on the left (ahemGreenwaldahem), I don’t give Obama all the credit for Republicans going full metal wacko on us. And even if this election year turns out as I hope, it will still be hard not to view the solid Democratic victory as the best possible outcome of a bipartisan effort.
comrade scott's agenda of rage
@JCT:
He’s remarkably proficient in modern English then.
Chuck Butcher
@Martin:
I’ll bet you, if I had money, that when the smash comes the analysis will be that ACA perpetuated a broken system beyond its capacity to exist. Now THAT is rank speculation on my part but this model is flatly fucked up. One thing it does is hide the cost from the consumer with no controls let into it other than how little the employer will pay the employee who doesn’t get to see the numbers. Everybody gets to play hide the… Meanwhile medical costs spiral.
kindness
I was just over at RedState to see what teh crazed think. Their most recent post states this compromise is the first step towards forced abortions.
Yes they are that crazy.
Wee Bey
@KXB:
Oh, indeed.
Jay in Oregon
@Mino:
You assume that they care about the living standards of their “quiverfull” followers.
Villago Delenda Est
@Chuck Butcher:
Well, the beanie brigade could still stamp their widdle Prada clad feet and say we won’t pay for health insurance for our employees, and then the other aspect of the law kicks in, that says they have to pony up (to the tune of $2000 a head past the 30th employee) if they send their employees to the exchange to get their coverage.
So one way or the other, this will cost them. They’re not being singled out due to their religion, they’re being treated just like any other large employer is.
The seething anger of the beanie brigade flows over me like a warm bath. It is delightful.
Emma
@jl: Truman was a white man from Missourah. Makes a difference how people viewed him.
lacp
@Southern Beale: One could hardly expect less in a venue where thousands are cheering for more santorum….
General Stuck
We do politics here, and politically, in respect to the coming reelection of a dem president instead of a republican one, is all win. The policy of for profit insurance under whatever model is doomed and everyone knows it, except most of the voters in this country. And spare me the polls that show the public is ready for gubmint run health care insurance. It ain’t, that is witnessed by the shitstorm of reform of the current private model. witnessed last election. Single payer is waiting in the wings for when all this mish mash of health care delivery private bidness models comes crashing down. And it will. In the meantime, we just do our best to keep as many people covered as well as is possible. Americans usually get it at the last possible moment before disaster strikes. Usually
Mnemosyne
Weirdly, I think the 2010 loss of the House gave the administration the freedom to do stuff like this, because they don’t have to worry that a bunch of Blue Dogs in the House are going to rebel and create a “Democrats in disarray!” narrative. If the House does try to pass some legislation, it’s just Republicans being jackholes and he can veto it without having to publicly go against his own party.
I think it took a while for the WH to get their bearings after the 2010 midterms and figure out how to use Republican obstructionism to their advantage, but they’ve got it now.
Tone In DC
@AxelFoley:
LULz.
Don’t be mixing Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat, man. That ain’t right.
Brachiator
@Gin & Tonic:
So, then, the improved health of people covered is collateral success.
I’m fine with that.
PTirebiter
Pierce makes an interesting point if the Church decides to reject the deal, but I think he underestimates Obama.
That tweety and lil’ luke have been reduced to ridiculing him for not being “wily” enough to do this three days ago speak volumes.
Tone In DC
@Southern Beale: LULz again.
bardgal
This was the most MASTERFUL PUNKING I’ve seen from President Obama to date. And there have been some amazing ones. (The takedown of The Donald™ at the WH Correspondents dinner while simultaneously having ST6 kill Bin Laden comes to mind.)
PBO to Catholic Bishops: “You don’t want to pay for something the insurance companies already pay for? Okay, we’ll still make them pay for it like we always have, and you won’t get that fantasy bill for all your employee’s birth control at the end of every month you were never going to get.”
And they’re too stupid to see they were just BURIED.
Mnemosyne
@Chuck Butcher:
The president just got up on national TV and said that my healthcare is just as important as someone’s religion and the government is going to make sure that those people aren’t allowed to fuck around with my healthcare. That may not seem like a “win” to you, but it’s something I’ve never gotten to see before.
Culture of Truth
Those are famous internet cats, right?
Legalize
@Hal:
Maybe he knew the lunatics on the other side would show their asses on an issue he knew he had in the bag. Maybe to say, “this is kind of thing that ACA does. The assholes who have been screaming for the past week are opposed to this kind of thing. Because they are assholes. No other reason.”
It’s campaign-mode Obama.
gex
@Rome Again: Of course the all too real fact of the matter is that they would make it illegal along with contraception. And they wouldn’t be ashamed to admit that if charged with trying to increase abortions.
They are the forced birthers, and not enough men and some really stupid women are bothered by that.
CaptainFwiffo
A number of insurance companies cover contraception already because pregnancy and its complications are fucking expensive. I think after the actuaries at the remainder finish crunching the numbers there will be no opposition to this from the insurance lobby, excluding those with Catholic CEOs.
Ed Drone
@Comrade Javamanphil:
Now wait a minute!!
Ed
Culture of Truth
Bishops need a pill to prevent that time of the month.
Martin
@Chuck Butcher:
No, I agree with that. But the cost spiral has to be felt in order to change it. Dems are cutting Medicare costs by $500B, and the GOP manages to play it as a cut to benefits, when it’s only a cut to costs. In the US, government is not as powerful as business – particularly when you add in the effects of lobbyists and campaign spending. Now, that too should be fixed, but you can’t do all of these in one effort. So if business is going to retain that power, then it’s not an unreasonable tactic to put the burden of this spiraling system back into business and let them use their own power to change it. Up until now, their response to the spiraling costs wasn’t to help fix the system, but to opt out of it. By throwing them back in, they might be able to force a change that government doesn’t have the power to do (or I should say, that politics doesn’t grant the power to do).
I’m not saying it’s clearly a winning strategy, but it’s not a crazy strategy, and nothing else has worked so far. If business can’t effect change but are still saddled with the consequences, then they may back giving that power to government. We’ll see how it plays out, but every other single payer system came about to address a health crisis. We’re not there yet. It’s bad – but it’s not yet a crisis and I doubt there will be any voluntary agreement to get there until there really is a crisis.
gex
@Chuck Butcher: $3bn to Catholic Charities alone. And since they are so big on the fungibility of money, that’s their child rape settlements we’re paying for. Also, the nastiest part of me likes to say they are against birth control, abortion, and gay adoptions so they have more options to chose from when they are horny.
barath
Not much to say but that I agree, and I hope this post gets read far and wide.
Villago Delenda Est
@Brachiator:
Furthermore, it establishes a precedent about preventative care. Contraception is cheaper than abortions or childbirth. Likewise, it’s less expensive to provide high blood pressure medication than it is to pay for ER visits for heart attacks.
From a fully utilitarian perspective, this makes loads of sense. Now of course, the wowsers don’t believe in this…see the pro-lifers who hate rubbers as much as they do abortions, because the entire point is slut shaming for them. Saving babies has jack shit to do with it in the final analysis. So fuck them. I don’t give a flying fuck about their hurt fee fees.
The entire goal should be to get as many people as possible into the preventative system (the VA is huge on this) in order to forestall the use of the ER as the care provider of the last (and most expensive) resort. That is, if you’re coming at this from a utilitarian perspective, and not a “punish the sinners!” perspective. But again, fuck the wowsers.
Chuck Butcher
@Mnemosyne:
The Prez just got up on nat tv and told you that you get to subsidize the beanies so they don’t get to fuck it over. Now, that is better than 6mos of 1st Amendment bullshit from all corners, but it also ain’t what you just said.
Yes, it was 1st A bullshit, they’re a goddam employer in a business not a fucking religion. Now we also subsidize businesses for a lot stupider reasons, so…
bardgal
@Mnemosyne:
EXACTLY.
jl
@xian: Thanks. I think the phrase ‘hobo dump bucket’ was an especially nice touch.
makewi
It’s simply shocking that anyone would get the idea that the some/many progressive minded people would try to equate woman’s health with birth control. Opposing intrusions into religious liberty means you hate woman and want them all to die.
bardgal
@Chuck Butcher: Actually just the opposite. Birth control has ALWAYS been paid by the insurer, not the employer. Nothing has changed.
PLUS – Birth control is cheaper than having a baby with all the pre/postnatal care involved. So it’s a WIN for insurance companies because their costs go down overall, and your premiums don’t go up.
Look at it this way – you’re not having to pay for someone having their litter of kids that puts a strain on the entire system for all of us.
Chuck Butcher
@Martin:
If that were anything like the case… I’d be all for it. It isn’t, it’s hidden in lost wages and charges to consumers of something entirely different.
Martin
@CaptainFwiffo:
ALL insurance companies offer it. The insurance companies are THRILLED to offer it, but insurance companies will cover whatever you want, so long as you pay. You want bandaids and herbal remedies and low fat cheese covered – no problem. Seriously, they don’t care. You tell them what you want, they’ll crunch the numbers, tell you what it costs and you can either pay it or not. It’s that simple. If your employer plan doesn’t cover contraception, your boss may blame the insurance company, but that’s bullshit. If contraception isn’t covered it’s because your boss didn’t want to pay. Now, the insurance company may be charging more for contraception than the other guys and less for boner pills than the other guys, and your boss wants the boner pills and chose a plan that got him what he wants, but again, the employer has all of the power under the current system *unless the state mandates certain things be covered*.
But there isn’t an insurance company out there that doesn’t realize that contraception is a hundred or more times cheaper than pregnancy, and there isn’t an insurance company out there that won’t be thrilled to cover it for everyone, so long as there’s room for it in the premiums.
jibeaux
Republicans do this all the time, call something a “compromise” when they haven’t compromised jack. They get their way and it makes them look reasonable to everyone who isn’t paying close attention. I call that results AND revenge, personally.
Sasha
And could we please put up a “Chill the fuck out — I got this” on the front page? It seems apropos.
General Stuck
@makewi:
LOL, as opposed to the wingnut belief that women are simply incubators for baby jeebus to fret over in making new wingnuts.
trollhattan
@makewi:
Late troll is late. But oddly enough, closes with a correct interpretation. Bravo.
Raven
@jibeaux: Does that mean you haz happy or sad?
Danny
@mistermix
Exactly right. They did the rope-a-dope again, tricking the forces of darkness to go all-in, defining themselves as anti women’s health in the process. Now the opposition will fracture with some standing down demoralized and others pressing on – drawing a sharper contrast for the mushy middle to see. And all Republican candidates are now on the record as anti-birth control. Well played.
pragmatism
i’m going to appropriate RC’s catchphrase and use it properly: VICTORY
Chuck Butcher
@bardgal:
Um … co-pays and straight out of pocket? The employer doesn’t pay for your ins – you do. Mostly you don’t get to know how much you pay for it…
Mnemosyne
@makewi:
It’s not like too many pregnancies too close together ever cause health problems like vaginal fistulas or anything, amirite? That’s all just made up by the liberal media to convince women not to have a baby every year.
jibeaux
@Raven: Beating them at their own game? I haz a ecstatic.
trollhattan
Also, too, contra Mr. Pierce, Scott Lemieux calls “win.”
http://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2012/02/checkmate
Commenting at Balloon Juice since 1937
Bishops: ‘We won’t pay for health care insurance that includes contraception’
Obama: ‘ You won’t. The contraception part is free from the insurance company’
Bishops: ‘Well, that’s different’
What a bunch of drama queens. If only all opponents weren’t this stupid.
fasteddie9318
Wait just a minute, here, because Mrs. Greenspan told me earlier today that this is the dumbest dumb that any president ever dumbed, and it’s totally tearing the Democratic Party to shreds because on one side you have like 60% of the general public and 53% of Catholics supporting this decision versus ~35% opposed, but on the other hand it makes Joe Biden and John Kerry feel squishy and gives EJ Dionne a sad. WHY DEAR JEEBUS DID YOU AFFLICT US WITH THIS OBAMA WHO IS
BLACK, FIRST OF ALL, I CAN’T BELIEVE YOU LET THAT GET BY YOU, PLUS HE PROBABLY SACRIFICES KITTENS TO THAT CAMEL JOCKEY MOON GOD, AND ALSO HE ISSO MUCH WORSE THAN CARTER? &c.Citizen Alan
I’m still laughing over the commenter at HPost who said that the fact that Obama compromised just proves that he’ll never be able to stand up to Iran!
Another Halocene Human
@milo: Could it be … FLOTUS?
Remember, sources say she pushed this issue in the first place, over Axelrod and other men’s objections.
Anyway, we know she’s Obama’s better half.
Mnemosyne
@Chuck Butcher:
No, what he just said is that, instead of having birth control be on separate coverage, it’s getting folded in with all prescription coverage, so either the red beanies cancel all health insurance for all their employees (and pay the $2,000 per person fine) or your Pill and your Nasonex get paid for out of the same fund.
He basically just told them to go fuck themselves. With a smile. I’m not sure how you get me having to subsidize the red beanies any more than I already do out of that.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@Martin:
This is one of the reasons why I’ve been saying for years now that the closest parallel to the Obama admin’s approach to getting health care reform thru a health industry dominated Congress today is the approach that the TR admin took 109 years ago to getting railroad reform thru a railroad and trust dominated Congress back when the Elkins Act and later the Hepburn Act were passed. Step 1 is you level the playing field so everybody feels the economic dislocations created by a sector which is producing an unstainable cost spiral. Step 2 is rolling back the cost of that spiral, but you don’t have the lobbying weight to pass step 2 until after you’ve passed step 1.
The ACA was the Elkins Act of health insurance.
Mark B.
How about this compromise: I get everything I want and you end up looking stupid? How does that work for you?
The Catholic bishops just got schooled.
dogwood
@PTirebiter:
I really enjoy Charles Pierce and read him almost every day, but he doesn’t like the President. So his reaction to today’s events is pretty predictable.
Chuck Butcher
@Mnemosyne:
He has politically hung them out to dry. That’s not the same thing.
Martin
@Chuck Butcher:
True, but you need to see the dynamic to the company. They only started offering coverage as a competitive advantage when hiring. So it’s always been viewed as a way to attract talent in lieu of salary, and due to adverse selection, people like me with ¾ of my household having pre-existing conditions, I had to settle for less salary in order to have the guarantee of the health benefit. The effect of this was to suppress wages across those sectors of the job market where health insurance was viewed as an key benefit to get – basically the middle class – because whatever wage increase I should have gotten all went into that spiraling health cost.
But this changes that dynamic fairly significantly in that the health benefit is no longer much of a competitive advantage because everyone will get it. Yeah, there’s some variation from low to high, but the important get was just to get it. So it takes health coverage off the table as the driver for attracting talent from those that didn’t have coverage. Now, instead of a competitive advantage, it just looks like a cost center – at least the minimum level of benefits mandated will – and the competitive advantage will need to come more out of other benefits (retirement, etc.) or back to wages. It might take a little while for this to sink in, but at some point employers are going to say “What’s the fucking point of having us all pay the same $5,000 per year per employee for this base of coverage? Why not roll that into a national plan, avoid the insurer markup, tax it across the board, and we’ll buy supplemental policies above that if we want to sweeten the deal to attract talent?” And then you get single payer.
Perspecticus
“No woman’s health should depend on who she is, or where she works, or how much money she makes […] period”).
Heh… “period.”
Villago Delenda Est
@Another Halocene Human:
I swear, if there’s any way I could get rid of Barack and take Michelle for my very own, I’d seriously consider doing it, because she is one incredibly sharp and sexy cookie.
Plus she’s got two charming daughters for whom I could call drone strikes on their boyfriends all day long.
Maude
@Mnemosyne:
#145
This is not a theocracy and we aren’t going to be one.
Reagan gave power to autocratic religicos and Obama just took it away.
This was a superb play by Obama. Start with something that the religious ones who want power over the entire country something they can’t stomach. After the screaming, change it to something they have to accept.
Politics is an art.
Martin
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ: Huh. I missed that argument, but I think you’re exactly right, if I remember the details of Elkin correctly.
Scott
Ha ha, makewi-troll has a sad.
fasteddie9318
Also too, Thrill-up-leg Guy and Nepotism Lad are right: why wasn’t the Sheriff bright enough to hatch this scheme three days ago? If only he’d done that, he wouldn’t have forced the Know Nothing Party and it’s allies at Boy Buggering, Inc. to look like anachronistic eunuchs for arguing against women’s access to contraceptives, in the year 20-fucking-12. President Kenya screwed the pooch there but good. Next he’ll probably be stupid enough to pick a fight with them over, oh, let’s say not drowning suspected witches? Yeah, that’ll fix his ooga-booga ass but good.
Mnemosyne
@Chuck Butcher:
I’m starting to get the feeling that we’re debating how many waltzing angels will fit on the head of a pin here. Hanging the UCCSB out to dry is not a political win? It seems more like Obama has taken the role of Father Ted with the bishops.
El Tiburon
@Chuck Butcher:
And yes, please tell us how we can kiss your ass some more.
When you tell Obama to jump, he will only jump so high. WINNING!
We lost just by letting these jerkwads have a seat at the table on this issue. Period.
JGabriel
mistermix @ Top:
Aaand … right on cue … Republicans TAKE THE BAIT!
Rick Santorum @ CPAC, Today:
Mitt Romney @ CPAC, Today:
Yee-Haw! Go ahead, GOPers! Attack the things that make it easier for Americans to fuck without worrying about taking on the risk and responsibility of raising a kid every time they do it.
Americans will LOVE you for that. It’s a real winner of an issue, let me tell ya. Nothing says “Vote for ME!” to the American public like saying, “I wanna make sex riskier and more fraught with boner-killing and vajayjay-drying consequences.”
.
OzoneR
@El Tiburon:
They’re paying the goddamn insurance premiums, we didn’t give them a seat at the table, the law did. And we just took their seats away.
Good Christ Almighty, stop now, you’re making a complete ass out of yourself.
Maude
@Villago Delenda Est:
#188
That is the sweetest thing anyone has ever said about FLOTUS.
BTW, at the first state dinner, the WH served arugula from the garden. No one caught that at the time.
Villago Delenda Est
@fasteddie9318:
Give them enough rope.
That’s precisely what Obama did.
The sweet music of the Kenyan near usurper playing these assclowns like the world’s tiniest violin gives me happy happy joy joys.
Martin
@Perspecticus:
Oh dear, he stepped in it again.
Jay C
@Commenting at Balloon Juice since 1937
You mean like Sens. Marco Rubio and Joe Manchin jumping on a “let’s let anybody ban contraception coverage at whim” bandwagon and ending up looking like misogynistic dopes when Obama wrong-footed them?
That level of Stoopid?
Culture of Truth
Michelle was Barack’s boss once. Listen to her!
MK
I would add that several hundred thousand women like my best friend (who is not a political junkie) now know that they are eligible for free contraceptive benefits under the ACA and that the ACA provides free check ups and mammograms. I just got an e-mail from her saying: “Hey why didn’t you tell me that this was part of the health care reform bill. So awesome. Go, Pres Obama.” This is one of those “swing” independent women voters that everyone always talks about. The ACA could not have gotten more free publicity than this. This reminds me of the payroll tax fight. More people than ever now know that they have something to lose if ACA is repealed. No one in America likes to have free stuff taken away from them…
bardgal
@Chuck Butcher: We ALL pay premiums, and whatever your plan makes you pay (deductible & copays.) Some employers pay employees premiums. Mine does. Then THEY write it off as a business expense.
it doesn’t matter – we all pay for everyone’s care now – as always – even if you don’t have insurance it comes out of your taxes.
Anyone having faux outrage over paying for birth control now, just never understood how insurance works.
pseudonymous in nc
As I said upthread, Obama and Sebelius had this in their back pocket, because the insurance companies want the lowest actuarial overhead they can under the PPACA regulations. It’s not simply that contraception is cheaper than pregnancy — it’s that running one set of numbers for a group plan is cheaper than running two sets.
FFS, when the USCCB makes private health insurers look good, then it’s a political win. In terms of electoral politics, it’s also a win: it brought the anti-contraception brigade out of the woodwork, and drove the wingnut base around Santorum.
And to quote Njorl from LGM:
Culture of Truth
That is indeed tragic.
Bruce S
Get ready for this:
“Money is fungible & there is no such thing as a free lunch, pill or whatever.* The Church and the faithful are still helping to pay for the deaths of gazillions of sperm under this new ‘compromise.’ This is just Obama bowing to Planned Parenthood’s genocidal terrorists.”
*Nostrums courtesy of Milton McFreegarble.
redshirt
This is how it feels when…. trolls cry.
Violet
Love President Obama. Many thanks to him for standing up for women and their health needs and not treating us as second class citizens. So impressed.
BTW, was listening to Limbaugh’s show in the car at lunch and heard him say that “you now have to pay for the abortion pill.” No correction to “birth control pill” but several mentions of how insurance now has to cover the abortion pill based on this new change by Obama.
Culture of Truth
@pseudonymous in nc: HA
bardgal
@Mark B.: Masterfully schooled!
Jay C
@pseudonymous in nc:
Myself, I liked the “endgame” notation:
“K x B – Checkmate”
Danny
@El Tiburon:
I submit that Andrew Sullivan’s hereby been proven right about something.
Chuck Butcher
@bardgal:
That’s what your wages are – a business expense. If that policy was offered to you and not others you’d pay the tax on its value as income.
Culture of Truth
Shouldn’t that be spermicidal terrorists?
MikeJ
@pseudonymous in nc:
This is an election year and the wingnuts are going to go full tilt anti “Obamacare”. Many people haven’t yet seen the benefits of the ACA yet (except young adults still on parental insurance) and Obama is letting the people who want to destroy it point out how good it is.
David Koch
@Hal:
Because the original rule was uncontroversial, as it followed laws already on the books in 28 states and a decade long rule by the EEOC. Also too, nearly all of the catholic run colleges and hospitals already offer contraception to their employees voluntary in order to attract employees (Heh – the invisible hand).
But this was ginned up into a fake controversy, so he had deal, not with the reality, but with the manufactured hysteria and yellow journalists.
In a way, it’s like the Weiner case. There was no sex, yet it was ginned up into a firestorm by the media, who ignored an actual sex scandal by Vitter and sex and bribery scandal by John Ensign.
JGabriel
@Chuck Butcher:
That may be true of the ACA in general, I don’t know (though I think it will be cheaper, in any event, than the system it replaces), but as far as this contraception deal goes, it won’t cost the insurance companies anything — making sure contraception is readily available is much cheaper than paying for accidental pregnancies and any complications that may arise from them.
.
Violet
@Bruce S:
Well of course they will, but that gets into the “I’m offended my tax money supports things I don’t like” arguments. There isn’t a lot of win there.
mistermix ... World Peace
@El Tiburon:
Translation: this didn’t go exactly the way I thought it should go, so no matter if it’s good or bad, I’m pissed.
bemused
It’s got to be absolutely frustrating to republicans that the president and first lady are nice, extremely smart, attractive and very cool people along with their two lovely daughters. No scandals, even temperaments, poise…there is nothing to work with there which why they have to resort to making up the most ludicrous crap.
Benjamin Franklin
Way off-topic, but you might want to get rid of that catbox…..
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/03/how-your-cat-is-making-you-crazy/8873/?single_page=true
DFH no.6
@burnspbesq:
Hey, you are here! Fantastic!
So, your tender religious sensibilities have been sufficiently placated, it seems.
That’s fantastic, too.
Now it’s the emo-proggers/firebaggers turn – how about it, say, WyldPirate. Good enough for you?
hueyplong
I’m crazy about Pierce, read him all the time, and rarely disagree with him. My take is that he really does long for smoking ruins where mitres once sat atop heads. So for him it isn’t a win unless the Catholic Church is denied so much as a fig leaf.
Here they get a fig leaf (unless they really want to double down and decide to fight on a hard core radical stance that will be widely seen as such), so Pierce ain’t happy.
Raven
@mistermix … World Peace: Fuck him, he’s always pissed.
gex
@Jay in Oregon: Actually, they need poor white women birthin’ babies so they can steal them to give them to wealthy white women who can’t have them. The leftovers are for the priests.
@Emma: Also, back then white men could behave more magnanimously towards their lessers because they were lessers in the eyes of the law. They hate not being at the top, so instead of continuing to allow us something they had, they want to take it away to put us back in our proper place.
Chuck Butcher
@JGabriel:
Well, it will cost them to administer this to beanies versus anyone else. Prevenitive care is better than after the fact care. No question.
JGabriel
Everyone know how words begin to look funny or wrong when they start getting used a lot?
Right now, the word Contraception is beginning to look that way. I keep thinking, “Oh, yeah, that sequel to Inception.”
Although I suppose, in a literal sense, we want it to be more of a prequel.
.
pragmatism
@mistermix … World Peace: sharky’s sort of thinking moves the dreaded overton window farther right by making everything a zero sum game.
El Tiburon
@OzoneR:
Catholics: We don’t want to pay for contraception for woman.
Obama: Ok, you don’t have to.
Next week:
(Insert Organization Name here): Hey, Obama, we don’t think we should what the law says we have to do.
Obama: Okay, you don’t have to.
Next Month: (Insert Organization Name here): Hey, Obama, we don’t think we should what the law says we have to do.
Obama: Okay, you don’t have to.
Month after:
Foreclosed Homeowner: Hey Obama, that $1,800 check didn’t help much, my life is screwed. Can we get some help here?
Underwater Homeowner: Hey Obama, that fraudulent mortgage I was tricked into, can I get some help here?
American Workers: Hey Obama, our wages are going down and we are losing jobs, can we get some help here?
Obama: Golf anyone?
comrade scott's agenda of rage
@fasteddie9318:
This is so full of win.
And alas, far too accurate a description of the thought process of Mrs Greenspan and her ilk.
Lawnguylander
@Butch:
OMG, do not listen to this Butch person. I did and I can’t stop shaking my head. I hope whatever syndrome his post triggered in me is covered by my health plan. To call what Charlie Pierce has on the issue a perspective is a misunderstanding of the word. It’s just some bullshit he pulled out of his ass. Charlie Pierce is the most overrated pundit ever.
Villago Delenda Est
@hueyplong:
I definitely understand where Pierce is coming from…we’ve seen it here from other Catholics who loathe the red beanies in ways we non-Catholics are simply unable to fathom, because we are not close enough to them to fully appreciate the loathing they engender in their own flock.
He wanted the smoking crater, and without it, he isn’t fully satisfied. I understand that.
Their time will come.
Sasha
The most satisfying smoking craters are the ones created via self-immolation. Expect some soon.
Cat Lady
@pseudonymous in nc:
It may not be 11 dimensional chess, but it’s chess, and the goopers are playing checkers, and even that not very well. Romney has to keep moving right because his path to the general election just got blown up. He was anticipating being able to move to the middle by now, on the economy. Now he has to move right to fight the culture wars all the way through Super Tuesday, with his record from Mass. They just can’t figure this Obama guy out, at all. Romney’s just been completely and totally hosed, and I don’t think he understands how this could be happening to him. It’s a thing of awesome beauty.
Ben Cisco
And once again POTUS makes the GOP look like the live-action version of Wile E. Coyote.
Raven
@El Tiburon: Take a ball retriever and stick the business end up your ass.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@Martin:
IIRC (it’s been 2 years since I did the research on this) the Elkins Act was a watered-down compromise that passed in 1903 when critics of excessive railroad tarrifs tried to get a bill passed which capped rates, and failed miserably. All they got was a law enforcing that that the RRs could not unfairly and arbitrarily discriminate between customers, they could no longer offer low tarrifs to some customers (aka their friends at the trusts) and screw everybody else, for the same freight haulage. Critics in the progressive press of the time cried TR is worse than McKinley, he sold us out ! ! ! .
The Hepburn Act passed 3 years later, and the rest is history.
Roger Moore
@Martin:
I think the hit and miss part has to do with who he’s dealing with. When it’s Obama vs. the Republicans, he seems to be pretty good at making them look stupid. I don’t know if he plans all this stuff or is just good at improvising, but he definitely seems to come out on top a lot. The fuckups have mostly come when he needs backing from Congressional Democrats. They have had an unfortunate tendency to fold at the first sign of opposition or, in the case of the Blue Dogs, to have lined up with the opposition in the first place.
Bruce S
Violet – it’s weak stuff, but they are desperate and have achieved some leverage so far. I’m very happy with the way this is playing out, but it ain’t over…
Frankly, so far as I’m concerned, given that this is about birth control and amplifying The Crazy, “Bring it on!”
Benjamin Franklin
@Raven:
Ouch! That would be one helluva reach-around.
fasteddie9318
@pseudonymous in nc:
You don’t know that, maybe Huckleberry has some previously undisclosed tendencies? It would be irresponsible not to speculate!
JGabriel
Chuck Butcher:
True, but those administrative costs are still cheaper, even from an insurance company’s POV, than the costs of the accidental or unwanted pregnancies that are thereby prevented. So it saves them money overall, rather than costing anything.
.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@El Tiburon:
Well you have to admit, the job of playing the fictional Obama who lives only inside of your head, that is probably the most tiresome and thankless job imaginable, enough to tempt anyone to call it quits.
Raven
@Benjamin Franklin: Not for that douche, he’s all asshole.
Judas Escargot, Your Postmodern Neighbor
It just dawned on me: Obama doesn’t play chess.
He plays Go. And he just claimed yet another corner of the grid for himself.
David Koch
mistermix … World Peace,
Dude, you know how it works. In the blogosphere it is as much about emotion than rationality.
On the day Obama repealed DADT, the usual suspects found ways to scream about it.
On the day Obama stopped the Keystone pipeline, the usual suspects found ways to scream at him.
jl
@fasteddie9318:
Thanks. The ignorant and lazy, or intentionally dishonest, media BS worries me. It is surreal.
I read in wonky policy blogs with links to official docs that this is a draft policy that will be modified over next year as standard operating procedure, and then the media utters BS about ‘backing down’ and ‘caving’. WTF, I go read the policy blogs again.
GOP, and a few Dem, slimeballs try to nick away at coverage or reproductive health by proposing businesses be allowed to opt out of offering birth control pill coverage on the flimsiest basis, aimed at supposed DemocRAT meddling with freedom of religion. Then I read in Daily Kos, with links to reliable sources that they are trying to roll back a policy in force for over ten years now, all through Bush II term.
Then I see the media cover it, and it is another WTF moment. Am I misreading, going mad? Or watching dishonest idiots on all the corporate media?
So, my worry is that Obama’s rather low key approach will not work with a completely misinformed public.
So, I’d feel more comfortable if Obama would go Truman and name names and drop a few ‘jackasses’ and ‘bullshits’ and ‘hobo dump buckets’ on the media and the GOP. (And I would like to include the bishops, but even I can see that is not a good idea.)
Some fear an African American president would stir unconscious wells of bigotry in the voters if he did that. Maybe. I do not care at all that he happens to be guilty of being black while telling the truth to the public.
But, as I said above, I have to trust that Obama knows what he is doing. At this rate the GOP will be tied in knots by election time, and alienating well over half the population.
If Obama can demonstrate with skillful means that peak wingnut is lie to the public, congratulations to him. I will hope he can do that in his own subtle way.
Anya
As I understand it, here’s the score:
POTUS and everyone who cares about women’s health: 1
Child rape enablers and their supporters: 0
Chicken Littles: Egg in the face
gwangung
Really. Are some folks expecting the Church hegemony and the right wing to fold here? And are these folks REALLY expecting them to get that much traction in the American public?
Catsy
One of my favorite things about this move is that it unambiguously separates those who were actually sincere and in good faith seeking a religious exemption, and those who were using it as a front in the war against women.
Those who were sincere about the religious exemption–those who actually understand the issue, that is–are pleased about this. It gives them exactly what they wanted.
But those whose real goal was eliminating access to birth control have been completely and thoroughly punked. And every minute they spend whining about this compromise just outs them more and more as anti-woman forced-birthers rather than decent people of faith.
pseudonymous in nc
@hueyplong:
Pierce is a Bostonian, so he has reason to regard the Catholic hierarchy in the same way as the Irish citizenry — that is, as a shadow theocracy. I get that. But that’s only a small (and declining) part of American Catholicism.
slag
@JGabriel: One of the good things about this particular method of compromising is that it could, if someone has the wherewithal, turn kay’s slippery slope concerns upside down.
Churches don’t want to pay for contraception? OK, the taxpayer will pay for it. Businesses don’t want to pay for contraception? OK, the taxpayer will pay for it. Nobody wants to pay for healthcare? OK, the taxpayer will pay for it.
I can dream.
scav
@Catsy: When he’s on his game, his plan B is better than his plan A and there’s all the drama and spotlight and howthehelldidthatjusthappen of watching the play by play.
Nemesis
CPAC and the media will spend the weekend telling us how Obama dropped the ball on this.
Eleventy dimensional chess detectors are drifting…
scav
CPAC’s cunning plan is a 1 followed by another 1, that is to say, repeating the same strategy over and over at the volume of 11.
Martin
@Roger Moore: Well, I think he’s learning that he really has very little to negotiate with other than the veto, and that the Congressional Dems are going to let their own self-interests lead unless Obama can carry them – which he most certainly can’t in many parts of the country. I think because Obama is never, ever going to win places like West Virginia, that Manchin will always have to cut the other way, because Obama is nothing but a liability due to the nature of the state. That’s unfortunate, but it’s also a bit worse for Obama than for Clinton and other presidents who generally at least had a path (if an unlikely one) to win over more of the country. I think we need to treat his mistakes of going in thinking the Dems would have his back, when he probably shouldn’t have counted on that as a fuckup. It genuinely is part of the job and part of the game. He seems to not fall into that trap nearly as often, and as his approval goes up, he’ll be able to count on his colleagues more and more as he’ll have coattails they can ride on.
But I think he’s learning that in order to negotiate with the GOP, he needs to create his own alternatives that he can fall back on or use as leverage, and he’s been expressing that more – that if Congress won’t help out on stimulus that he’ll ask the Fed to do it instead. That’s a real bit of leverage that he could have used from the outset, but I think just didn’t know to do. For Wall Street, he went to the states and is doing an end-run around Congress for some stuff there. I think he’s just figuring out how to deal with an entrenched opponent better than he was able to before.
Commenting at Balloon Juice Since 1937
@Jay C: Yes, that stoopid.
“If only all opponents weren’t this stupid.” I meant if only all of them WERE this stupid, but you read it as I intended, not as I wrote it.
gex
@JGabriel: The insurance companies tendencies to practice rescission on pregnant ladies was hopefully addressed in the ACA. Otherwise this is not exactly true.
jl
@Martin:
” I think he’s just figuring out how to deal with an entrenched opponent better than he was able to before. ”
After reading your comment, I interpret ‘entrenched opponent’ as the disgusting racism that infects most of some regions of the country, and a sizable minority in every part of the country.
Martin
@JGabriel:
Yeah, it doesn’t work out in a lot of cases, but I think the cost differential between a pregnancy and contraception is so high, that it’s a winner all around. If those costs were closer, it likely wouldn’t be.
End of life costs have soared because innovation has allowed us to perpetually apply more resources to every problem, disproportionate to what you get out (actuarially speaking, you spend more money keeping old people alive another month than you can collect from them in a month – cold, but that’s the business). The same dynamic is also seen in natal care – we can save pregnancies we never could before and preemies that would have died just a few years ago are routinely saved now. I know that first hand as my wife was hooked up to every machine you’ve ever seen in your life and both kids spent extensive time in the NICU. Those two pregnancies cost a fortune – well into the 6 figures. It simply wasn’t possible to spend that kind of money on a pregnancy 2 decades ago, and so the benefit of spending money to avoid that pregnancy (in the event it was unplanned) 2 decades ago wasn’t there, because the $20 you put in up front for preventative care, wasn’t preventing particularly high costs later. Now it is. My insurance company will probably never get enough in premiums out of us (and my employer) to break even on us just from those two events. They should have sent a doctor to my house to give me a vasectomy free of charge to make sure there wouldn’t be a third child.
les
@Chuck Butcher:
I don’t get how we’re subsidizing the beanies, any more than any insurance scheme “subsidizes” some by risk sharing. They don’t get a discount here; they just don’t pay separately for something labeled birth control. They still pay the insurance company bill for coverage they get.
El Tiburon
From Charles Pierce:
Although TBogg sees it as a win.
But not a victory. Same with ACA. Same with meager Bank settlement. On and on it goes. Seems the ONLY thing Obama didn’t scale back on was the trillions in bail out to Wall STreet
teresa
@aimai:
Me too.
batgirl
@Bulworth:
Yep all the way. They just made birth control basic coverage for women’s health insurance. And I’ve now talked to a handful of women who regularly vote for the GOP, and who support the President on this, watch as their political party takes the side of old white men in beanies who want to take away their and their daughters’ birth control. It’s a win win!
Lojasmo
@Hal:
I won’t use the old “eleven dimensional chess” terminology, but man, I love watching that guy out-shark the sharks.
AxelFoley
@Satanicpanic:
Everyday, man. Everyday.
different-church-lady
@The Moar You Know:
Don’t be ridiculous: cats don’t have brains.
Lojasmo
@Chuck Butcher:
This is a cost-neutral proposition. You would know that if you fucking paid attention.
pseudonymous in nc
@El Tiburon:
“Christmas: not a win. Kittens: not a win. On and on it goes.”
Samara Morgan
@Anya: did you know that Chicken Little is an actual codename for an actual SAR data collection of BMPs and T-72s?
thought not.
les
@Chuck Butcher:
I’m really missing your point here; the rule is now, all policies the same (on this matter). If anything, it’ll be cheaper to not have different deals for the beanies; how is it costing us anything?
Samara Morgan
oh wow.
im typing into the abyss again.
Brachiator
@Villago Delenda Est:
I guess, although I don’t quite look at pregnancy as an illness.
Very good point, but unfortunately it’s lost on those who insist on looking at reproductive rights from a moralistic or religious perspective.
You also see how twisted this is in the whines about “Liberty! Liberty! Obama is preventing me from having my religious institution tell me how to live my life!”
benintn
@Southern Beale: I think this calls for a celebration, SoBeale.
shortstop
What a very enjoyable outcome.
About this, though:
I mentioned this in the previous thread but didn’t get any bites. Pregnancies have always been more expensive than contraceptives, including prior to the 2000 law change, which was the first time I and most women I know were able to get contraceptive coverage (from secular employers). Why did big insurance not push for coverage before then? In fact, it fought that change pretty hard, as I recall.
I do not think it’s a slam dunk that insurance companies wanted to pick up the bill for this. I’m assuming it’s actually cheaper not to cover everyone’s contraceptives, since a) even though pregnancy is expensive, only a certain number of women are pregnant at any given time, whereas millions upon millions are on the pill, and b) many women/couples are determined enough to not get pregnant that they’ll pick up the tab on their own if forced to (and if they can).
I’ve just gotten in from running around and I haven’t gotten the details on this yet; while I’m looking, can anyone tell me if and how it’s not being set up that Catholic institutions have to pay more for insurance policies with no BC coverage? Because that’s going to create a whole new discussion.
Am decidedly NOT being Debbie Downer about any of this, BTW. It’s all good news so far.
Martin
@les: I think his point is that the true cost of health care is being hidden within corporate ledgers where neither the workers know enough to speak out against how much of their wages are being steered into this benefit nor the consumers who are paying inflated prices to cover this growing cost know how uncompetitive it makes US business to speak out either. And that while this is, in the micro sense, a good thing, in the macro sense it just adds one more piece to a larger underlying problem.
I don’t disagree with that view. I just don’t see a direct way out of it except to go along the route that I and ThatLeftTurnInABQ have been alluding to. There are other paths, but no political means to get there other than the one before us, which sucks, but unlike the current hands-off approach which is clearly a failure, at least it stands a chance.
J. Michael Neal
@Samara Morgan: Sometimes the abyss types back.
Martin
@shortstop:
Actually, that’s not true from an actuarial standpoint. The only pregnancies they would get to save on are the prevented unwanted pregnancies, and the only cost benefits then are the costs for those women who wouldn’t have paid out of pocket. Everyone who would have paid out of pocket and now get it for free are a huge added cost, with no benefit at all (since they would have not gotten pregnant anyway), and all wanted pregnancies aren’t a savings on the cost side since they were always wanted. I think if you do the math you find that not that long ago birth control was expensive enough, and the cost of pregnancies low enough that it wasn’t an obvious win. As contraception costs have come down (particularly due to the long-term contraceptives) and as the costs of pregnancies have gone way up, the balance has shifted into being a clearer win for coverage. And since more and more states already require coverage, insurers are only facing the incremental cost of adding the next group, so the cost for each expansion of the mandate is relatively low and the expansion for this particular expansion is ridiculously low because it only affects those that are employed at religious affiliated employers, who do not already offer coverage and will be prescribed birth control.
Patricia Kayden
President Obama is brilliant. And yes, this is a clear win — for him, Sebellius and women.
Boehner is still unhappy, but screw him and his rightwing cronies.
shortstop
@Patricia Kayden:
Is he crying yet? Because it’s happy hour on the east coast, and I hear he hits the bars on Capitol Hill pretty hard, and I’m guessing it wouldn’t be that difficult at this point to tip him into the vale of tears for our own amusement.
Mnemosyne
@shortstop:
From what I can tell (and don’t quote me on this), Catholic institutions will be buying the exact same policies as everyone else since BCP has been folded in with all other prescription coverage. The only difference seems to be that their female employees will be told about the contraceptive coverage by the insurance company instead of the institution’s HR department.
Samara Morgan
@J. Michael Neal: nevah.
Abbadon haz no typing skillz
Mnemosyne
@El Tiburon:
Shorter El Tiburon: I have no idea what just happened, but I’m sure it’s Obama’s fault.
OzoneR
@El Tiburon:
Are women getting it or not?
Who the fuck cares who is paying it?
les
@Martin: No argument on that point; employer provided health care coverage has been a huge factor in fucking up the US system, and major in the fucking up is the complete lack of transparency you cite. I just don’t see how the current position constitutes any kind of subsidy to religious employers–they used to be able to opt out of contraceptive coverage, now they can’t; but it’s not separately stated, so they don’t make a payment labeled “contraceptives.” But those employers still negotiate and pay for coverage–it’s not like they get a special break, that’s covered by a gov’t. payment.
rikryah
AxelFoley,
this rocks.
OzoneR
@El Tiburon:
Furthermore, I see you missed the whole argument completely
Catholics: Women shouldn’t use birth control, so we’re not paying for it lest they get it
Obama: Then someone else will, cause they’re getting it whether you like it or not.
Only a complete idiot doesn’t get that PAYING for birth control wasn’t the issue the church had.
shortstop
Right, Martin, just like I said in the comment to which you’re ostensibly responding. I’m beginning to think you read the first 10 words of every comment and immediate start your jagged flow of response.
Meh. You’re thinking about 1970. I’m talking about not quite 12 years ago. Although the differential is even greater now, it was already quite pronounced at the turn of this century — when insurance companies were still fighting hard against required contraceptive coverage.
This appears to be your single solid point, so thanks for that. I’d still like to hear from anyone who knows whether the revised mandate allows insurance companies to charge more for policies to religious hospitals and universities which will exclude contraceptive coverage.
Mnemosyne
@OzoneR:
Throw in the fact that insurance companies get to bump their premiums up a smidge so they can include contraceptives in their ordinary prescription coverage, and you quickly figure out that the institution is still paying for that birth control, it’s just not paying separately.
shortstop
@Mnemosyne: Thanks, Mnemo.
@Mnemosyne: And will this be their next rallying point? It will be interesting to see what they try to do with that. I admit I’m enjoying this.
WaterGirl
@Villago Delenda Est: If you could just wait, say 5 years, the country would greatly appreciate it.
Also, if you wouldn’t mind giving me a heads up in advance, then I can be there to support Barack through his loss.
ruemara
@El Tiburon: Except he didn’t. Because the bank bailout happened under Bush. Even the automaker bailout started under Bush. It was approved under Obama. Grow. Up.
@Chuck Butcher:
I just have to say, you are not subsidizing beanie boys. You are subsidizing women who choose not to become pregnant and who do not have employee insurance that helps with that. It is the same basic outcome if this was via medicare or medicaid. The fact that it is a religious affiliated employer who is causing it is the primary difference.
Emma
@OzoneR: He can’t. His hatred is so strong facts can’t penetrate it.
Emma
@El Tiburon: Bullshit. You have just descended into sheer insanity. Please, for our peace of mind, if not for your own, get some help.
Martin
@shortstop:
Sorry. I often start writing something that winds up at the end, then realize I should have added something above, then add that and wind up doing what I did. Just how I write.
I doubt that HHS has worked out the details this quickly, but my guess is that since insurers were required to offer the rider anyway for the non-religious institutions, that by eliminating it, they’ll be allowed to absorb that cost back into their premiums in a zero-sum manner. Hospitals will need to pay more because they’re paying for a larger policy which is not the same as everyone else’s policy, it’s just that the cost of the contraceptives isn’t a line item that they can point to. But are they (or anyone else) specifically paying for contraceptives? No, because even though you pay premiums that might cover it, the cost of the contraceptives isn’t realized until someone fills a prescription, which no hospital employee may ever do. Now that sounds silly, but because the employer isn’t allowed to see what the employee is or is not getting treated for, there’s no way for the hospital to point to anything and declare “See! I paid for birth control!” It’s just money in a pot. If it helps them sleep at night, I would offer to declare that their premiums paid for my prescriptions and my premiums paid for any birth control that their employees might redeem.
Evolving Deep Southerner (tense changed for accuracy)
@Hal: That’s the funny thing.
It’s not 11th dimensional chess. He’s fucking beating them in checkers.
redshirt
@AxelFoley:
I’m completely down. 100%.
slightly_peeved
A side note, which I think it’s important to bring up..
this whole situation occurred because the Roman Catholic church’s health insurer was now legally required to cover contraceptives.
The situation was resolved by Obama directing the Secretary of HHS to mandate that all insurers now cover contraceptives. Because, apparently (and I’m surprised no-one’s making more of a deal out of this) Kathleen Sebelius can now just tell health insurers they have to cover something, and they do. No involvement by Congress, no appeal, just bam!
Both of these are the result of the ACA. You know, that sweet deal the insurers got that Obama completely failed at negotiating.
Of course, if he had refused to compromise and it hadn’t gotten through, the insurers would have continued to not cover contraception and Sebelius couldn’t have done squat.
(If I can toot my own horn for a sec, what I’ve said in previous threads is that anyone thinking this law did nothing should download the ACA and search for every reference to the Secretary of HHS. In summary, with the ACA, she gets to be Darth Vader to the insurance companies’ Lando Calrissian. She has altered the deal; pray she does not alter it further.)
burnspbesq
@Xenos:
Clowns like the Becket Fund are why we have Rule 11 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.