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United States News Title: Senate Defeats Republican Bid to Cancel Obama Birth-Control Coverage Rule The U.S. Senate defeated a Republican plan to let insurance plans and employers refuse to cover birth control and other health services that violate their religious beliefs. The Democratic-controlled chamber voted 51-48 against the proposal offered by Missouri Republican Roy Blunt. The measure would have canceled a rule from President Barack Obama’s administration requiring health insurers to cover contraception without charge for insured employees of religiously affiliated institutions. The Republican plan “takes aim at women’s access to health care,” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat, said before the vote. “It would allow any employer or insurer to deny coverage for virtually any treatment for virtually any reason.” Mammograms, flu shots and prenatal care are among the services women could be denied, Reid said. Republicans, outraged over the administration’s rule, said Blunt’s proposal was needed to protect religious freedom and rights of conscience under the Constitution. “If Democrats no longer see the value in defending the First Amendment because they don’t think it’s politically expedient to do so, or because they want to protect the president, then Republicans will have to do it for them,” said Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican. Access to Health Care Democrats portray the measure as the latest example of a Republican attack on women’s access to health care. Today’s vote will be “very helpful” to Democrats in November, Senator Richard Durbin of Illinois, the Senate’s second-ranking Democrat, told reporters. “Ours is a mainstream position shared by not only Democrats but many independents.” Congressional Republicans say opposition to the administration’s rule may boost turnout among religious voters for Republican candidates in the November election. Republican presidential front-runners Mitt Romney of Massachusetts and Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania are among the Republicans who have accused the Obama administration of violating religious liberty. Senator Tom Coburn, an Oklahoma Republican, said yesterday in an interview that if Obama’s rule isn’t overturned, “it is going to markedly increase turnout” among religious voters for Republican candidates in November. The administration’s original version of the rule included religious-affiliated universities and hospitals among other employers required to provide coverage for contraception. Houses of worship were exempt. Catholic Outrage Republicans in Congress and officials within the Catholic Church reacted with outrage. Catholic doctrine forbids the use of artificial birth control, and church leaders said its affiliated hospitals and colleges shouldn’t have to comply. On Feb. 10, Obama announced a compromise requiring insurers, and not religious-affiliated colleges and universities, to finance contraceptives for employees of those institutions. In a Feb. 28 letter to fellow Republican senators, Blunt, a Romney supporter, called the policy “an egregious violation of religious freedom” guaranteed under the Constitution’s First Amendment. His proposal would have allowed any health coverage provider, not just those affiliated with religious institutions, to refuse to cover any service or procedure that conflicted with its religious or moral beliefs. Blunt offered his proposal as an amendment to a Senate highway bill, S. 1813.
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#1. To: Brian S (#0)
Can't stop the Welfare train ya know.... if they did that nobody would vote for them....
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