Obama Chief of Staff: No More Compromise on Contraceptive Mandate

By Doug Powers • February 12, 2012 04:26 PM

With the Supreme Court hearing the Obamacare case this spring, it’s unlikely we’ll see the administration admitting that swaths of the law were not thought through very well. However, we will see attempts to make the public think the administration is willing to compromise on certain aspects of the law’s implementation. These give-and-takes are carefully calculated so they result in… the exact same law being implemented. But as far as concessions go, even the most merciful and caring administration in history has to draw the line somewhere.
From Fox News:

Despite renewed statements of concern by Catholic leaders, 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.”

Lost in the mix here seems to be the point that the administration doesn’t have the authority to do any of this in the first place, which is why it’s important reject the entire premise and not validate the effort by accepting any “revised compromise.” Assume somebody says they’re going to take four of my cookies, and I say they have no right to do that. Then they say they’re willing to compromise and only take two cookies, and I reluctantly agree. Either way I’ve admitted that they have a right to reach into my cookie jar, so before I know it there won’t be any cookies left… at which point I’ll be told it was for my own good because I needed to lose a few pounds anyway.
Obama telegraphed where he’d be coming from on this (and related) issues in a 2008 speech making it clear which side must come out on top in a dispute between the State and the Church in order for society as a whole to be better off:


Background: Obama’s fraudulent abortion mandate accommodation