President Obama has taken a terrible situation and made it positively untenable. His decision to apply his "contraceptive mandate" to faith affiliated organizations such as Catholic hospitals and Universities as well as charities of all religions, has stirred stout opposition from adherents to those faiths.
After a couple of weeks of resistance that ranged from stout disapproval to outright refusal to comply under any circumstances, the President announced through surrogates that he would be making a statement at the end of the week regarding the controversy. He did just that, and in doing so, he has added grievous insult to felonious injury.
The original mandate required all forms of contraception to be provided through the employees health care insurance free of charge. No co-pays, no co-insurance, no charge whatsoever. This mandate would cover abortifacients such as RU-486, the "Morning After" pill which induces a spontaneous abortion of the newly conceived child before implantation in the womb.
Pro-life and religious leaders spoke out immediately against the government forcing people of faith to act against their conscience by financially supporting and thereby legitimizing morally abhorrent procedures. Vowing that the mandate would be overturned, church leaders began drawing battle lines in preparation for a protracted fight.
Facing overwhelming opposition to his policy, President Obama responded in a way that provided a searing look into the cold heart of a chest-thumping statist; he played a little word game.
After a malty discourse about how his faith has guided him, etc, etc, blah, blah, he came to his point by saying that church affiliated organizations would be exempted from directly providing these offensive services, but rather, the companies that insure them would be mandated to do it on their behalf.
Of course, insurance companies aren't just going to accept the additional costs of providing services without charge, they will pass the increased costs along to the insured in the form of higher premiums and other assorted fees. In the end, the exempted religious organization is still paying for the services.
As offensive as that is, I feel the President had something else in mind. He was reportedly peeved at the pushback from the affected groups and his response revealed an ultimatum; pay for his mandate without complaint, or find your groups rendered uninsurable by government fiat.
What insurance company is going to continue a business relationship with a hospital or university when they are forced to provide profit-leeching coverage without the ability to recoup those costs in the form of higher premiums? Of course, they cannot. The insurance companies will simply withdraw from that market, and the President will have achieved his original aim; his way, or no way at all.
Obama is playing hardball now. The mask is long removed, and furthering the agenda is the prime directive. This assault on the Constitutional right to free exercise of religion is only the beginning of what will prove to be a frenetic effort to disrupt and confound the protections of Constitutional law.
The statist cannot achieve his aims in a Constitutional Republic. That Republic must first be "fundamentally transformed" before it can be controlled. The last three years have been preparation for this final year. President Obama is "not in over his head," nor is he "well-meaning, but naive." He is an unrepentant socialist with a grudge against the nation he governs. Perhaps, for the first time in our nation's history, we have a President who truly is an enemy of the state.
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