From the Great Compromise of 1787 to the Compromise of 1850, compromises are etched into our nation’s history. Unfortunately, President Obama’s recent “compromise” with our nation’s religious employers is not a compromise at all.
On January 20, when the Obama Administration announced a new Obamacare mandate requiring religious employers to provide free contraceptives to their employees, there was an outcry across the nation. Why would the President ever ask religious Americans to violate their moral conscience by forcing them to provide abortifacients, or pills that cause abortions? Since that announcement, churches have been staking their ground against the President’s decision. Thousands of Roman Catholic priests and bishops read their congregations a stirring and thought provoking letter during Sunday Mass Services. Countless news programs revolved around this controversial Obamacare provision. Many pundits wondered why a President up for re-election in November would make such a damaging political move.
In light of this controversy, it came as no surprise when President Obama announced he would compromise on this mandate. Before his announcement this past Friday, many Americans were hopeful that the Chief Executive would relent and allow religious employers to provide their own health insurance, free of the contraceptive mandate. Yet amazingly, the President took to the podium and offered a revised version of exactly the same plan!
The President provided the following compromise:
“Under the rule, women will still have access to free preventive care that includes contraceptive services — no matter where they work. So that core principle remains. But if a woman’s employer is a charity or a hospital that has a religious objection to providing contraceptive services as part of their health plan, the insurance company — not the hospital, not the charity — will be required to reach out and offer the woman contraceptive care free of charge, without co-pays and without hassles.”
In other words, though the religious employers would no longer be forced to offer free contraceptives to their employees, they will still be required to provide insurance plans to their employees that will provide them with free contraceptives. This is deception. This is not a compromise.
In fact, I would be interested to know in what way the President actually compromised his original mandate at all. According to Webster’s Dictionary, the very definition of compromise is “a settlement of differences by mutual concessions.” Because if religious employers are still forced to provide insurance that gives their employees access to free contraceptives, in what way has the President actually conceded his original plan? The sad truth is that he is still asking many American employers to violate their moral conscience on a daily basis. No healthcare plan should force Americans to go against their deeply held religious beliefs. This horrendous mandate is just one of the many reasons that I will not rest until Obamacare is repealed.