The Obama regime has ordered insurance companies to start providing Birth Control medications as a part of health insurance plans, regardless of the religious beliefs of the companies that run the health insurance programs or the employer that provides the program.
This story is getting a lot of press on the religious freedom. There is another story here, even more important.
What is it?
Do you remember the battle over Obamacare in 2010? Obama was out pushing Obamacare. We all know if Obama’s lips are moving he is lying but he told one of his biggest lies in support of Obamacare. He said, if you like your own private insurance, you will be able to keep it. He said that private insurance would be an option along with Obamacare.
Obama and his socialist allies have always wanted a nationalized single payer health care system. They cannot have private insurance competing with it because private insurance will always do better than the government model.
So what is Obama doing?
The edict from the Obama regime that directs the health plans to include birth control says it must be done at no out of pocket expense.
So if there is no out of pocket expense, what is the insurance company going to do?
It must include the cost in the premiums it charges. Birth control is not the only thing that insurance companies are being forced to cover under the new law. They are being force to keep children on their parents insurance until age 26 and are now being forced to cover preexisting conditions.
What is the end result? Private health insurance is becoming much more expensive and harder for Americans to afford.
Right now, the Department of Health and Human Services has the power to review rate increases of more than 10% a year to determine if they are “reasonable.” While HHS can review those rate increases now, in 2014, they will have the power to regulate those rate increases. Starting in 2014, both state and federal regulators will have the power to impose sanctions when companies make rate increases that the bureaucrats consider “excessive.”
So what will happen in 2014? Most of the health insurance companies will go out of business. The so-called death panels are already being assembled. They are not called death panels, but ethics review.
I was talking with someone in the medical profession this week. He told me that right now, they are already preparing for an ethics review for medical care for anyone over 70 and the presumption will be they only get “comfort care,” not life saving care. That is, unless the ethics committee says otherwise.
If you have a 71 year old patient in the ER with a treatable emergency condition at 2 AM, where are you going to find the “ethics committee” to decide if they get treatment?
The Supreme Court will decide the constitutionality of Obamacare this summer. It is scary to think so much of the future of this country will be decided by nine unelected men and woman.
We must make sure that if Obamacare is declared Constitutional, the next Congress repeals this terrible bill.
The Catholic Bishops are going to fight this..... U.S. Bishops Vow to Fight HHS Edict