Claiming that it now wished to "accommodate" religious liberty, while sticking to demanding that women working for religious employers be offered free contraceptive services, the White House announced today a change to a DHHS rule that had caused a great political furor in the past two weeks.
The new rule will ensure:
"that if a woman works for a religious employer with objections to providing contraceptive services as part of its health plan, the religious employer will not be required to provide, pay for or refer for contraception coverage, but her insurance company will be required to directly offer her contraceptive care free of charge."
The announcement acknowledged the concerns raised by the Catholic Church and other religious groups as "important", but the White House sought in the rule change to make an essentially seamless experience for employees of religious organizations, which employees will not have to sacrifice full coverage respecting recommended contraceptive services in order to provide the political accommodation to the objecting faith-based groups.
The question is whether the fact that these employees will still obtain the coverage counted as "immoral" by the Catholic Church, for example, will still be offensive to some religious employers.
Further, since the debate about the White House's alleged "assault" on religious freedom has had an enthusiastic reception on the Republican campaign trail, particularly with the campaign of Rick Santorum, the compromise on the rule may not have any deep demonstrable impact on lessening the criticism from conservatives over the matter.
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