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By BEN FELLER
WASHINGTON
President Barack Obama declared Friday he's found a solution that will protect religious liberty but also ensure that women have access to free birth control, as he rushed to defuse an election-year political uproar that threatened to overtake his administration.
Capping weeks of growing controversy, Obama announced he was backing off a newly announced requirement for religious employers to provide free birth control coverage even if it runs counter to their religious beliefs. Instead, workers at such institutions will be able to get free birth control coverage directly from health insurance companies.
"Religious liberty will be protected and a law that requires free preventative care will not discriminate against women," Obama said in a brief appearance in the White House briefing room.
"I understand some folks in Washington want to treat this as another political wedge issue. But it shouldn't be. I certainly never saw it that way," Obama said. "This is an issue where people of good will on both sides of the debate have been sorting through some very complicated questions."
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the president has no authority and neither does HHS
Congress specifically decided not to allow the sale of health insurance across state lines. The Democrat controlled Congress voted against an ammendment by the Republicans to allow health insurance companies to sale policies across state lines.
The president and HHS have no control over insurance companies since there is NO interstate commerce. Sure an insurance company may be national or regional, but since each state regulates the insurance companies WITHIN their state and Congress decided not to allow INTERSTATE COMMERCE, Congress removed the president's and HHS' power of control.
Sure, a STATE can regulate what health insurance companies can do, but the federal government has no authority.
Controling health costs
According to 272 American economists:
“The Affordable Care Act contains essentially every cost-containment provision policy analysts have considered effective in reducing the rate of medical spending."
http://www.americanprogressaction.org/issues/2011/01/pdf/budgetcommitteefinal.pdf
chumps
the real way to think about this as the insurance companies jack up every ones premiums
is a tax on every American making less than $250,000 a year - thank you MaoO
Chump.
The real way to think about this is that easier (free) access to preventative services well save everybody money in the long run - including the insurance companies that have been dumb enough to discourage such care through short-sighted reimbursement policies in the past.
We should all be very
We should all be very afraid. This President has just shown his true objectives. To unravel Our Constitution. This is much more then birth control. It is people control. The Feds telling private companies what they must do. Nancy Pelosie told us that when Obama Health Care was passed then we could read what was in the bill. Well here we go. Do you know that starting in 2012, when we retires sell and downsize our homes we will have to pay a Federal tax based on sale amount? Just another example of federal Gov treading on me and you.
Comment deleted
Comment removed for rules violation. Reason: Personal attack, name calling
Comment deleted
Comment removed for rules violation. Reason: Personal attack, name calling
Pelosi
What House Speaker Nancy Pelosi actually said was: "But we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it, away from the fog of the controversy."
In other words, we will have to read it to find out that it doesn't actually contain any of the horrible things that health reform opponents say are in there -- things like a government takeover of health care, death panels, taxpayer payment for abortion, coverage for illegal immigrants, or the real estate tax you are promulgating.
Well...
Why not present the darn bill in full before the vote? I hope you have your nose plugged with all the B/S smell you are standing in.
With very little effort, I
With very little effort, I was able to look up the entire Affordable (Health) Care Bill after hearing so many crazier-than-crazy comments in town hall meetings from tea-bag, adorned, hat-wearing folks.
Guess what, there was no 'death panels' within the bill as Ms. Palin claimed. And, after my neighbor told me she was proud (imagine that) that the guy had yelled "Liar" at the president on TV, I looked up the nonsense she swore was in the bill. And, again, there was no basis for the rant she went on.
Bottom line, if I had the interest and took the time to find the truth, the information was at your fingertips as well.