The President and Kathleen Sebelius, director of Health and Human Services, just announced a switcharoo.
Obama’s healthcare law declared that employers have to include contraception services on their insurance plans. Obama and Sebelius just explained why: preventative treatment. Preventing a disease is cheaper than dealing with the consequences of the disease.
Yes, the Obama view is that pregnancy and children are a disease to be prevented. This isn’t new, as he previously said that he didn’t want his daughters to be “punished with a baby” if they “made a mistake” and got pregnant.
The president just announced a change in how the law is implemented, so that insurance will pay for the cost, so religious institutions won’t have to. Nothing changed. Nothing.
Contraception is still required to be available on every plan. Americans that provide health insurance policies to employees, are legally bound to be paying for a plan that provides contraceptive services, many of which are abortive in nature.
Obama’s announcement of who pays for it changes nothing, for 2 reasons:
- Like all companies (think oil companies, banks, etc.), insurance companies’ costs are paid for by consumers. If the cost of providing insurance increases, premiums have to increase in order to pay for the costs.
- Sebelius, on an interview immediately following the press conference, said that offering contraceptives has no cost associated with it. That is, the insurance company won’t have to pay any increased costs.
This means that nothing at all has changed about employers having to pay for contraception. Nothing has changed, in our government’s pursuit of preventing the disease known as children.
