From the Cardinal Newman Society press release:
In addition to the violations of Catholic colleges’ religious liberty in today’s new Health and Human Services (HHS) guidelines for health insurance plans, HHS took the extraordinary step of putting the guidelines into effect immediately so that college students could have free contraceptives, sterilizations and abortifacients by the 2012-2013 school year.
“The Obama Administration apparently believes that ensuring contraceptives for students’ premarital exploits is reason enough to forego public comment before making these rules effective,” said Patrick J. Reilly, President of The Cardinal Newman Society. “That is social engineering at its worst.”
According to the proposed rule submitted to the Office of the Federal Register:
“The July 19, 2010 interim final rules indicated that HRSA expected to issue guidelines by August 1, 2011. After considering public comments raising the issue addressed in these amendments, however, the Departments determined that HRSA should be granted the discretion to address the commenter concerns at issue prior to issuing guidelines under section 2713(a)(4). Many college student policy years begin in August and an estimated 1.5 million young adults are estimated to be covered by such policies.5 Providing an opportunity for public comment as described above would mean that the guidelines could not be issued until after August of 2011. This delay would mean that many students could not benefit from the new prevention coverage without cost-sharing following from the issuance of the guidelines until the 2013-14 school year, as opposed to the 2012-13 school year. Similarly, 2008 data from the Department of Labor indicate that over 4 million Americans have ERISA group health plan coverage that starts in August or September; they too would experience over a year’s delay in the receipt of the new benefit if the public comment period delayed the issuance of the guidance for over a month. The Departments have determined that such a delay in implementation of the statutory requirement that women receive vital preventive services without cost-sharing would be contrary to the public interest because it could result in adverse health consequences that may not otherwise have occurred.”
This news release is available here.
Adam Wilson
CNS Staff
Matthew Archbold
Charlotte Hays
5 Comments
This kind of policy and process is not new for the Obama admin – the party of death. While a high unemployment rate may justify stop’g pregnancies, it is ironic that this gov’t would employ policies that reduce the birth rate when this country is already at a low enough birth rate to jeopardize the ability of this country to survive – not to mention the moral aspects of this nonesense or the economic issues in a year of hugh debt. Liberal policy knows no principle or common sense.
Now my health insurance cost needs to cost more, probably a lot more, so women don’t have to worry about “unplanned” pregnancies. I wonder if they will be warned about unplanned strokes, blood clots, high blood pressure, breast cancer, ovarian cancer, etc.. along with unplanned abortions, that women suffer due to use of the Pill.I wonder how much treating all those complications will cost?
These types of unilateral actions by the administration using power to force their immoral ways on the public make me sick. Radical liberals call for tolerance in getting their way, but once they have it there is no tolerance for anyone who is against their ideas. What happened to freedom of religion?
These types of unilateral actions by the administration using power to force their ideas on the public makes me sick. Radical liberals call for tolerance in getting their way, but once they have it, there is no tolerance for anyone who is against their ideas. What happened to freedom of religion?
Sterilizations? College students? Really? Is there even a demand for such a thing?
Of course, some of those STDs you can can whilst using a condom can cause sterilization, but the HHS isn’t really talking about that.