Fix Health Care Policy

President Obama’s Unworkable Non-Solution on Conscience

Today, President Obama unsuccessfully attempted to extricate himself from a political crisis of his own making.

The issue is Obamacare’s requirement that health insurers and employer-sponsored health plans cover federally mandated “preventive services” in their benefit packages—with no co-pays for enrollees—and the Administration’s subsequent regulatory requirement that those mandated preventive services include contraceptive products and services—including abortion-inducing drugs.

The “compromise” the President announced today is that contraception coverage “will be offered to women by their employers’ insurance companies directly, with no role for religious employers who oppose contraception. Insurance companies will be required to provide contraception coverage to these women free of charge.”  (Read the rest on The Foundry…)

Tags: abortifacients, compromise, contraceptives, Obama administration, preventive services, religious employers

Heritage Reacts to White House “Accommodation” to Religious Liberty

After two weeks of increasingly intense criticism over Obamacare’s disregard for religious liberty, the White House woke up this morning in a mood to “accommodate” its critics.

Perhaps White House officials should have signaled that to Senate Democrats yesterday before Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid blocked an amendment sponsored by Sen. Roy Blunt (R-MO) to preserve faith-based groups’ religious liberty and not force them to take actions contrary to their beliefs and teachings.  (Read the rest on The Foundry…)

Tags: accomodation, compromise, contraceptive mandate, ObamaCare, reaction

Debt Ceiling Debate: Making Bad Health Policy Worse Doesn’t Justify Budget Savings

Red Alert! Conservatives in Congress and elsewhere should be warned: The Administration’s latest signal for “compromise” may end up as little more than an expansion of existing bad policy, rather than a serious effort to enact substantive reforms. And only substantive reforms can change the perverse incentives that plague giant entitlement programs and have worsened America’s deepening financial crisis.

Consider some of the latest ideas that have surfaced in the media for finding “savings” in health policy:  (Read the rest on The Foundry…)

Tags: compromise, debt limit talks, health care spending, Medicaid, Medicare, ObamaCare