It was the passage of the Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare)
that launched the tea party movement in 2010 and planted seeds of resentment
toward the Washington establishment that continues to rage across America to
this day. And there’s no better of
example of why this movement of outrage has grown and accelerated than the case
– Zubik v. Burwell (more popularly known as Obamacare v. Little Sisters of the
Poor) – now before the U.S. Supreme Court (SCOTUS).
Obamacare mandate requires employers and private insurance
plans to provide cost-free coverage for contraceptives, sterilization and
abortion-inducing drugs. These
provisions arrived under the broader headline mandating that “preventative care”
be provided cost-free. That is, with no
copayments, deductibles or coinsurance.
Religious houses of worship – churches, synagogues – were
given the option by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to opt
out of providing the birth control coverage to avoid coercion against religious
convictions. But religiously affiliated
nonprofits – like the Catholic charity Little Sisters of the Poor – were not … under
the rationale that their employees are not necessarily of the same faith.
When these religiously affiliated groups cried foul, HHS
designed what they thought was a way out. They concocted a plan allowing the
organization to sign a form passing the buck to a third-party organization (like
their insurance company) to provide the free coverage of contraceptive and
abortion inducing devices and drugs.
In the great religious sensitivity of the bureaucrats at
HHS, they thought that if the Little Sisters object to committing what they
believe to be murder them-selves, they would not object to contracting it out
to someone else.
But, no, this really doesn’t work for those whose religious
convictions are genuine. So the Little
Sisters and six other plaintiffs sued to protect their religious freedom.
Is it any wonder why so many feel that our government has
gotten way out of hand?
Picture the wheels turning in Washington in 2009 as the
governmental bureaucrats were putting together the massive legislative
construct that would emerge as Obamacare.
Democrat legislators, who then controlled the Congress, under the
approving eye of the Democrat president in the White House, constructed their
grand vision of how to use government power to force all Americans into what
they believed health care coverage should look like. Included was the idea that preventative care
was a noble idea that should get special treatment. Mandate employers and private plans to provide
it at no additional cost to the employee.
But what exactly is “preventative care?” The Act never defines it.
Although, according to the Constitution, it is the job of
Congress to legislate and the job of the Executive Branch to execute and
administer, the legislative responsibility of determining what is “preventative
care” was punted to HHS. They then passed
it off to their contracted friends to decide; and suddenly included in “preventive
care” was contraceptives, sterilization and pills to induce abortion. Not only did HHS and their beltway bandit friends
decide the definition of “preventative care,” but also those same HHS bureaucrats
decided the definition of “religion” by granting exemptions to those whom they
think deserve one for religious purposes.
As an amicus brief filed by the Cato Institute and the
Independent Women’s Forum asks, since when do bureaucrats at federal agencies
have constitutional authority to make decisions about religious liberty? It is crazy to think that the U.S.
Constitution gives government power to force any employer to finance contraceptives
and abortion pills for employees … let alone forcing Catholic charities and
Catholic universities to do the same.
Is not the U.S. government supposed to be about protecting
individual liberty, not about using power to ram any politician’s pet projects
down our throats?
Rev. Dr.
Kenneth L. Beale, Jr.
Chaplain
(Colonel-Ret), U.S. Army
Pastor,
Ft. Snelling Memorial Chapel
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