Will Obama's Thanksgiving Gift to Female Voters Be a Tax on Women's Healthcare?

[phantom power]

Women's groups working to save coverage of women's health care under health reform are concerned that President Obama will cave as early as this weekend to demands by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (all 271 men) to eliminate coverage of birth control without a co-pay by so expanding the current exemption for churches that millions of women who work for organizations affiliated with the Church and other anti-choice groups who claim a religious leaning would be denied coverage.

...

Now, a President who doesn't seem to be able to resist pressure to cave on any number of key policy issues is considering actually further diminishing this victory in a kind of bait and switch--promising women they would not lose coverage, but in fact by caving to the Bishops, taking away coverage millions of women already have.

This is a tax on women. Birth control without insurance coverage can run as much as $600.00 per year. Without consistent access to birth control, women face constant risk of unintended pregnancy, abrogating their fundamental rights to plan their families and make decisions about how many children to have and when; to decide about their own educational and economic paths; to safeguard their own and their family's health. Such a tax will of course fall most heavily on low-income women, and therefore most heavily on Latina, African American, and Native American women who already make up a disproportionate share of this economic group.

http://www.rhrealitycheck.org/article/2011/11/23/will-obamas-thanksgiving-gift-to-female-voters-be-a-tax-on-women-0

[ParkieDem]

1. OK, flame away, but ...

I don't really see access to contraception as a fundamental "right." I think the Catholic Church is batshit crazy for opposing birth control, but I don't think it should be required to provide it in its insurance plans if it is fundamentally against it.

I think there are plenty of insurance policies that are discriminatory by covering Viagra but not BC, but this is beside the point.

[noiretextatique]

3. fundamental opposition has nothing to do with healthcare

some people don't "believe" in transfusions of vaccines. what other healthcare options should be subject to the beliefs of religious folk?

[musette_sf]

7. Access to contraception is fundamental

to the freedom and autonomy of female US citizens.

Women whose access to highly effective contraception is compromised or prevented, cannot live as autonomous citizens. They are subject to random events of fertilization that effectively constrict, and even destroy, the ability to be in the workplace or in education.

It is draconian to require female US citizens to be disproportionately disenfranchised by insurance companies and the companies/organizations that provide health care coverage to their employees. It is demeaning to expect female US citizens to be celibate if they want to pursue a career and/or educational goals. No such disenfranchisement and moral stricture is imposed on male US citizens who desire to pursue a career and/or educational goals.

[CrispyQ]

2. If he does this then I will not vote for Obama.

I'm having a hard time wondering why I should vote for him now, but if he does this, the deal is sealed.

[Kahuna]

6. That's your deal breaker? Really? Not the supreme court? Not

preservaton of social programs? Really?

[CrispyQ]

8. My first deal breaker was letting war criminals walk without an investigation by the DOJ.

I've accumulated more since then. :(

[lamp_shade]

4. If he does this then I will vote for Newt Gingrich. I mean it.

[shraby]

5. Seems to me that people who say that

because Obama has been accused of thinking of doing something and if he does it they will vote for the nutjob the republicans run for president, planned on voting for the nutjob of the day anyway.

Otherwise they would never consider giving the reins of government to a republican. Not a chance.