Obama Forces Catholic Charities To Pay Insurance Premiums for Birth Control

Despite renewed statements of concern by Catholic leaders and lawmakers, the Obama administration is done negotiating and will finalize its plan requiring insurance companies to provide free contraception to women working and studying at religious institutions, President Obama's chief of staff said Sunday.

Jacob Lew told "Fox News Sunday" that the compromise offered last week to address objections by the Catholic Church is clear and consistent with the president's "very deep belief that a woman has a right to all forms of preventive health care, including contraception."

"We have set out our policy," Lew said. "We are going to finalize it in the final rules, but I think what the president announced on Friday is a balanced approach that meets the concerns raised both in terms of access to health care and in terms of protecting religious liberties, and we think that's the right approach."

But Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said the conversation isn't over yet.

"If we end up having to try to overcome the president's opposition by legislation, of course, I'd be happy to support it and intend to support it," McConnell said on CBS' "Face the Nation."

"It would be difficult as long as the president is rigid in his view that he gets to decide what somebody else's religion is. I assume he would veto it. But yeah, we'll be voting on that in the Senate. And you can anticipate that that would happen as soon as possible," he said.

On Friday, Obama revised his decision to require all employers to provide contraceptive care after Catholic organizations balked that it is an intrusion on the Church's religious liberty to require it to provide birth control. The president changed the mandate to shift the burden to insurance companies to provide free access to birth control and other forms of contraception.

"No institution, nonprofit institution, that has religious principles that would be violated has to pay for or directly offer these services, but women have access to the kinds of care they're entitled to. We think that's the right approach," Lew said Sunday.

"This is a solution so that they are not providing it, so they're not offering it, they're not paying for it. So women have the choice on their own," Lew added. I think a lot of good work was done and hopefully this will now set the issue to rest."

However, Lew's claim is not true. It is the employer who pays most (if not all) of the insurance premiums, and adding contraception increases the premium. So the Catholic organizations would be paying for the controversial coverage.

Not suprisingly, Catholic leaders, while first reserving judgment, remain dissatisfied. Late Friday, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops issued a statement declaring the new policy of "grave moral concern" and urged Congress to overturn the regulation.

"Today's proposal continues to involve needless government intrusion in the internal governance of religions institutions and to threaten government coercion of religious people and groups to violate their most deeply held convictions," the bishops said in a lengthy statement.

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