Sebelius Wastes No Time Making Costly Birth Control "Free"
Hmmm...control...Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, the pro-abortion, “Catholic” former Governor of Kansas, announced today that birth control will be provided as part of all insurance plans at no cost to women. This comes less than two weeks after the Institute of Medicine (IOM) issued a report recommending that the “full range of Food and Drug Administration-approved contraceptive methods, sterilization procedures, and patient education and counseling for all women with reproductive capacity” be provided at no cost and without co-pays. This is part of a series of recommendations that the IOM provided HHS with regard to the no-cost preventive services for women. Pro-life organizations condemned the findings both during the IOM hearings and after they were published because pregnancy is not a disease to be prevented. While the announcement itself had been expected, the timing was unusual. Even though Sebelius informally promised a judgment by August 1st, what is surprising is that she took very little time to review the IOM report prior to making a decision. In this case, it appears that the decision was already made; the IOM recommendation was a mere formality.
Planned Parenthood has lobbied extensively to include contraceptives as covered preventive health care measures. They applauded the IOM recently by telling their supporters that the government was on the “verge of securing birth control with no co-pays for millions of women.” As the Governor of Kansas, Sebelius was the darling of Planned Parenthood, and she has continued in that capacity as HHS Secretary. She vetoed pro-life legislation in 2003, 2005, 2006, and 2008. Furthermore, she credits Planned Parenthood, along with the late-term abortionist, the late George Tiller, for a substantial part of her fundraising as governor.
This new measure is costly—at a time when the government purportedly is trying to rein in spending. The Guttmacher Institute, Planned Parenthood’s research arm, reports that in 2006 it cost $106 annually in public funds for contraceptive services and supplies per woman in need. For the 7 million Medicaid women using birth control, this amounts to over $800 million in government-provided contraception. Of course, provision of contraceptives to Medicaid patients will be unaffected by these changes because Medicaid patients already do not pay a co-pay for medical services rendered.
On the other hand, the same report indicated that in 2008, there were 36 million women in need of contraceptives who were not Medicaid patients but who were using private health insurance plans. These are women of reproductive age who are sexually active and do not want to become pregnant. The overall cost of the contraceptive services utilized by these women is over $3.8 billion, of which over $1.3 billion is currently covered by the patients’ co-pay funds (assuming $35/co-pay). As the government further places the burden of “preventive services for women” on private health plans, the additional cost of eliminating co-pays for those seeking contraception comes to at least $1.3 billion (as stated above); this huge sum will be “paid for” through increased insurance premiums for all individuals in private insurance plans.
Ultimately, free birth control is not free at all. Besides the enormous additional sum that will be diffused through the health-care overhead of the country, the cost of birth control may also be measured physically. If we take into account the many side effects of hormonal contraceptives, including breast cancer, we see that this decision will have compound ramifications far beyond its financial impact on our fragile economy.
There is an alternative: Natural Family Planning (NFP) programs around the country provide an effective non-contraceptive means of postponing pregnancies. Of course, NFP requires individual responsibility, self-control, respect for the dignity of others, and virtuous decisions—behaviors this current administration is loath to embrace and which are not readily apparent in the citizenry at large.
Bob Laird is a fellow at HLI America and is the former Director of Tepeyac Family Center. He writes from Lorton, VA. His recent publications can be found at the HLI America’s Truth and Charity Forum.
Meanwhile, the apostates continue to dig their way into progressively [Hee-hee.] nastier circles of Hell...
On the 43rd anniversary of Pope Paul VI’s groundbreaking decision to reaffirm the Vatican’s ban on contraception, a score of progressive Catholic organizations wrote to Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, calling on her to “implement the coverage recommendations of the recent Institute of Medicine (IOM) report which include comprehensive contraceptive methods as a preventive benefit.”
The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops has been active in seeking to allow some entities to opt out of this no-cost coverage for family planning by seeking to create burdensome conscience clause provisions. Citing the Catholic social justice tradition, the organizations requested that Secretary Sebelius reject this demand from the US bishops and not “impose burdensome conscience clauses which seek to limit and indeed eliminate access, and dishonor the conscience of those seeking services.”
Most Catholics use modern contraceptives and believe it is a moral choice. Many of these good Catholics wish the hierarchy would respect their decisions, taken in good conscience, about what is best for themselves, as well as for their relationships, families and children. Sadly, the US bishops do not accept or acknowledge this perspective.
The letter noted that the “vast majority of Catholics in the United States support contraceptive services—98 percent of sexually active Catholic women in the US have used a modern contraceptive method at some point in their lives. When Catholic voters considered healthcare reform in 2009, more than six in ten supported health insurance coverage—whether it is private or government insurance—for contraception and family planning. It is clear that the IOM’s recommendations are strongly supported by Catholics throughout the United States.”
The timing of the letter is particularly opportune because July 25 is the 43rd anniversary of the date in 1968 when Pope Paul VI issued Humanae Vitae. This encyclical, subtitled “On the regulation of birth,” reaffirmed the Vatican’s stance against the use of artificial contraception. The ensuing split between the hierarchy’s instruction and the practice of the faithful, told in the Catholics for Choice publication Truth & Consequence: A Look Behind the Vatican's Ban on Contraception, reveals much about the hierarchy’s long-standing obsession with contraception.
When the previous pontiff, Pope John XXIII, decided to open a discussion on contraception by appointing a commission to study birth control, many believed the church teaching would change. However, he subsequently removed the Birth Control Commission from the main debates of the Second Vatican Council in an apparent attempt to control its findings. His successor, Pope Paul VI, expanded the Commission to include five (married) women as part of its contingent of 34 lay members. Early reports from the Commission suggested the ban would be ended because the use of contraceptives by married couples was not “intrinsically” evil. When the published document reaffirmed the church’s prohibition on contraception, rejecting the recommendation of the majority of the experts on the Commission, it caused a huge rift in the church.
Today, the vast majority of Catholics have rejected the Vatican’s teaching on contraception, as shown by the wide variety of Catholic organizations that have signed the letter, which concludes: “A large majority of Catholics in the US are committed to ensuring that women and men have access to the full range of reproductive healthcare services. The recommendations from the IOM are an important step in ensuring that all women will have access to family planning services under the ACA and that all Catholics will be able to listen to their consciences and have their consciences honored in turn.”
The organizations that signed on are as follows:
8th Day Center for Justice – Women in Church and Society Committee
Association for Rights in the Catholic Church
Call to Action
Catholics for Choice
Chicago Women-Church
Congregation for Peace with Justice Committee of the Sisters of Providence SMW
CORPUS
DignityUSA
Ecumenical Catholic Communion
Faithful of Southern Illinois
Greater Cincinnati Women-Church
National Coalition of American Nuns
New Ways Ministry
San Francisco Bay Area Women-Church
Southeastern Pennsylvania Women’s Ordination Conference
WomenEucharist Boulder
Women-Church Baltimore
Women’s Alliance for Theology, Ethics and Ritual
Women’s Ordination Conference
May God have mercy on their black, bloody souls. They're going to need it.
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